EMEA's 48% Cross-Border Payments Share Fuels Stablecoin Push

EMEA accounts for 48% of global outbound retail cross-border payments, a new report from Money20/20 Europe and FXC Intelligence found. The report, released as the conference opens in Amsterdam, points to stablecoins and tokenization as the key drivers behind the region's push for financial sovereignty.

The 48% share makes EMEA the largest outbound retail payments region globally, ahead of Asia-Pacific and the Americas. Europe is seeking to reduce its dependence on dollar-denominated systems and the correspondent banking network that routes through New York and London. Stablecoins offer a settlement layer that bypasses both. Tokenized assets – real-world assets on distributed ledgers – let value move without touching SWIFT or Fedwire. Crypto super-apps could extend that logic to equity flows.

That headline figure masks fragmentation. EMEA's outbound flows cut across dozens of currencies and regulatory regimes. A euro-to-zloty transfer faces different friction than a euro-to-dirham one. Stablecoins collapse that friction into a single on-chain hop, provided liquidity exists on the receiving end.

Tokenization forms the second pillar. If a European bank issues a tokenized bond and settles it against a stablecoin on the same ledger, the cross-border leg disappears. That is the sovereignty play – a parallel infrastructure that does not rely on U.S. dollar clearing.