At Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt, global payment leaders unpack how real-time rails, stablecoins, and wallets are converging to transform liquidity management, cross-border infrastructure, and financial inclusion.
Reporting from Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt, The Global Treasurer spoke with payment and liquidity leaders at the centre of the industry’s shift to real time. From instant rails and stablecoins to always-on clearing and wallet interoperability, these are some of our top conversations shaping the next phase of cross-border infrastructure:
For Rossana Thomas, Vice President of Enterprise Payments at Fiserv, real-time payments are reaching critical mass. “Most regions now have a real-time solution, and adoption curves are steep,” she said. Fiserv is expanding its reach with FedNow and RTP in the U.S., while building a digital-assets platform to help banks and merchants enter the stablecoin space safely. Its forthcoming FIUSD coin will target B2B cross-border payments, aiming to cut correspondent dependencies and FX friction. “It’s about expanding options, not replacing rails,” Thomas added. With BIS Nexus advancing interoperability and regulatory frameworks maturing, she sees real-time and digital assets converging into a unified liquidity layer—faster, transparent, and institutionally trusted.
Banking Circle’s Michael Boel described a market where “liquidity must move where it’s needed, when it’s needed.” For corporates, that means cash mobility in minutes, not days, and reconciliation at transaction level rather than batched settlement. Always-on liquidity, he explained, is transforming both sides of the equation: corporates benefit from continuous receivables, while banks and PSPs must operate 24/7 with active-active architectures and zero downtime. “Clients increasingly expect cheap, fast, reliable—and that’s the new normal.” Boel foresees treasurers shifting to shorter value chains and multi-partner setups, keeping funds close to clearings and central banks. His Sibos takeaway: interoperability between instant schemes is now a collective mission, with Europe leading moves toward cross-border connectivity.
Not every bank is ready for a 24/7 world. Sathish Padmanathan of Tietoevry Banking says that while instant payments are maturing, real-time liquidity is “the missing piece.” Many platforms still think in end-of-day cycles, even as transactions pour in every second.
“The shift from high-value, low-volume to low-value, high-volume demands a different kind of resilience,” he said. Europe is moving first under regulatory pressure, but even there, legacy liquidity engines lag behind. For corporates, the impact is mixed. Instant collections and Request-to-Pay bring huge cash flow benefits, but ERP systems built for batches can’t keep up. Padmanathan suggests a pragmatic middle ground — virtual accounts and bank-managed reconciliation — until true real-time treasury becomes viable. His prediction? A “cash-lite” future where account-to-account payments, stablecoins and digital currencies redefine what liquidity even means.
At TerraPay, Gautam Kotriwala is tackling the liquidity puzzle in hard-to-reach markets. “Instant cross-border needs instant liquidity,” they said. TerraPay moves funds to 150 countries and is piloting stablecoins to improve treasury transfers, accelerating value-dating and working-capital efficiency. The challenge lies in uneven local-currency liquidity and varied regulatory readiness. Stablecoins currently serve treasury use cases, while last-mile payouts remain fiat-based, but Kotriwala sees clear momentum. “Where frameworks mature, adoption follows.” TerraPay is also driving wallet interoperability, forming an inter-wallet council to enable direct transfers between wallet providers. Over the next two years, he expects treasury efficiency gains wherever stablecoin rails are permitted, supported by transparent, licensed partnerships. His Sibos takeaway: Stablecoins and AI dominate the conversation—the next phase is turning buzz into adoption.
Furthermore, companies such as Thunes have launched stablecoin solutions which manage liquidity more effectively in cross-border payments, enabling instant transfers. For the customer, the experience of funding or paying out in stablecoins is the same as fiat.
Thunes’ Chief Product Officer Elie Bertha, said: “Stablecoins directly address three big challenges in global payments: speed, availability and FX volatility. They allow 24/7/365 instant movement of move funds and free up capital, giving businesses and consumers faster, more predictable access to their money – whether it’s a freelancer in Africa being paid instantly on a Sunday night, or a business in Asia using stablecoins to hedge volatility.”
For ClearBank’s Chris Newman, embedded finance is a structural shift. ClearBank, a cloud-native regulated bank active in the UK and Netherlands, is now taking its model to corporates after years of serving fintechs.
He sees a triangle forming: banks providing regulated infrastructure and risk management; tech firms driving the UX; and corporates owning the customer relationship. The approach is already paying off. “Clients come for the infrastructure but stay for the compliance and reliability,” Newman said. Looking ahead, he expects digital assets to integrate seamlessly into this ecosystem, especially where they solve customer pain points. “It’s about meeting the customer where they already are, and making finance invisible.”
For Thunes Chief Product Officer Elie Bertha, mobile wallets remain the most powerful instrument of inclusion, and their global expansion is accelerating. “By 2026, 60% of the world’s population will use a mobile wallet,” they noted. Once confined to emerging markets, wallets now span three types: closed-loop, semi open-loop, and fully open—and are driving financial participation and convenience alike. In regions such as Africa and the Philippines, operators built wallets atop mobile networks to reach the unbanked. Now, the drivers have evolved: integration, merchant acceptance, and daily convenience. “What began as inclusion is now infrastructure,” Bertha said. As wallets converge with bank rails and cross-border platforms, they are becoming a central pillar of the new liquidity and payments ecosystem.
From stablecoins to wallets and always-on liquidity, the global treasury model is shifting from static control to dynamic flow. The next challenge lies not in technology, but in alignment – across regulators, platforms, and institutions, to make real-time truly global.