/PRNewswire/ — Although Asia is at the forefront of domestic payments innovation, its international payments corridors remain among the most inefficient in the world, according to a white paper published by Saber, a provider of international stablecoin payments infrastructure.
Asia has some of the most advanced national payments systems in the world, including PayNow in Singapore, InstaPay in the Philippines and PromptPay in Thailand. Yet it is estimated that at any given time, some $5 trillion remains unused in pre-funded correspondent accounts around the world, due to inefficiencies in international payments. A transfer of 200 dollars incurs fees of 6 to 10%, takes several days to be authorized and passes through several correspondent banks before reaching its recipient.
The “Stablecoin Strategy for Asia 2026” white paper provides a comprehensive guide to establishing stablecoin payment infrastructure in Asia’s most complex corridors.
“Asia’s domestic payments infrastructure is world-class, but its international payments infrastructure is not.” “It is in this gap that stablecoins come into their own as a settlement layer, a role for which correspondent banking was never designed,” said Edul Patel, founder and CEO of Saber.
Blockchain enables settlements in seconds. The hardest part comes later.
Saber’s white paper highlights the limitations of the technology. Stable cryptocurrencies do not completely eliminate obstacles related to international payments. While settlement via blockchain takes just seconds, converting digital currencies into local currencies remains hampered by disparate compliance regimes, uneven market liquidity, and the realities of last-mile banking.
The main conclusions are:
- The Compliance Mosaic: Asia imposes 48 distinct regulatory regimes on operators, each characterized by asymmetric compliance rules, local identity verification requirements and ever-changing Travel Rule structures, unlike Europe’s unified SEPA framework.
- Liquidity Discipline: Access to a global pool of stablecoins does not guarantee market depth. Liquidity of pairs such as USDT/PHP or USDT/MYR is not guaranteed on a large scale or outside of business hours. Liquidity management should be considered a fundamental operational discipline.
- The pitfall of moving from prototype to production: Production-scale transactions must simultaneously meet requirements for identity assignment, Travel Rule compliance, and liquidity management. Most stablecoin integrations in Asia fail because operators underestimate the actual requirements of production operations.
- The orchestration imperative: Scaling requires a dedicated orchestration layer, capable of managing corridor-specific liquidity, circumventing bank service interruptions, and managing counterparty error management logic.
“Building a payments infrastructure in Asia requires approved payment partners in each corridor, liquidity management capable of operating at scale and outside of business hours, and a compliance architecture that meets the requirements of multiple state regulators simultaneously. This is the infrastructure that Saber spent two years building. This white paper reflects what we learned while doing it,” said Saurabh Kumar, Chief Commercial Officer at Saber.
About Saber
Saber is a company specializing in international payments infrastructure based on stablecoins, providing the settlement channels connecting the stablecoin universe to local financial systems in Asia and beyond. Founded in 2024, the company has processed more than $3 billion in international payments in over 40 countries, and operates under more than ten regulatory licenses. Saber is a licensed Money Services Business (MSB) in Canada that fully complies with Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Sanctions Control and Travel Rule guidelines.
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