At Sibos 2025, the session “Reducing FX settlement risks: Are stablecoins a solid bet?” tackled the question of how to bring down foreign exchange settlement risks and costs, especially in emerging markets. Moderator Thomas Olsen led a discussion with Clement Berthou, Dirk Bullmann, Andres Fondevilla Marón and Yomna Rashed.

The panel stressed that settlement risk continues to be significant. As Olsen, partner at Bain and Company, noted, “Over US$2 trillion of daily volumes are still not settled PPP and have other risks such as liquidity and other costs.”

Up to 5 days

For African markets, Rashed, director Treasury & Markets at African Export-Import Bank, highlighted how infrastructure and geography combine to stretch timelines: “A single transaction can be done in up to five days, for example. Also the over-reliance on corresponding banks.”

Berthou, chief learning officer at Institute for Banking Studies (National Bank of Cambodia), pointed to uneven access. He underlined that PvP infrastructures do reduce risk, but the number of emerging market currencies covered is “very limited,” which leaves many participants dependent on correspondents.

Stablecoins

The role of stablecoins prompted cautious responses. From the settlement-infrastructure side, Bullmann, global head of public policy at CLS Group, argued the industry must respect current safety rules: “Just to illustrate the point, we are, at CLS, we are the settlement backbone of the global FX market, so we are systemically relevant, and we are bound by rules like the principles of a national market infrastructure, which clearly say, you should settle in central bank money… so stablecoins are not part of the equation, at least not at the moment.”

Fragmented

Regulatory fragmentation also featured in the discussion. “It depends on regulation, obviously. Nowadays, regulation is fragmented,” said Fondevilla Marón, head digital assets AM&GW at BBVA, capturing the practical barrier to rapid rollout of new instruments.

The panelists concluded that regional initiatives and better public-private coordination can reduce risk while new token-based solutions and tokenised liabilities mature.

Sibos 2025 plays out in Frankfurt from 29 September to 2 October, with about 12,000 registered delegates. We are there, overview our coverage here.