Italy's Central Bank Finds Stablecoins Still Can't Beat Traditional Payments

Banca d'Italia researchers took 200 USDC and tried to send it across 10 international corridors – Italy to Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, the UAE, Japan. They acted like ordinary customers, funding exchange accounts, buying the stablecoin, transferring it, selling at the destination, and withdrawing the cash.

The finding surprised no one inside the study: stablecoins did not systematically outperform existing remittance services. Total costs ranged from 0.30% to 8.96% of the amount sent. Completion times varied from less than 20 minutes to two business days.

The blockchain leg itself contributed roughly 0.4% of the cost. Exchange spreads, card charges, currency conversion, and bank withdrawal fees accounted for nearly all the variation. The researchers called this the “stablecoin sandwich” – a fast blockchain transaction trapped between two slow, expensive fiat endpoints.

Corridor performance depended almost entirely on the quality of domestic instant-payment infrastructure. Transfers involving Italy, Brazil, and Argentina cleared in under 20 minutes because TIPS, Pix, and Transferencias 3.0 moved the fiat stages quickly. In South Africa, the same stablecoin architecture required one to two business days. The delay came from standard bank transfers at the start or end of the transaction. Stablecoins needed efficient conventional payment systems to deliver their promised efficiency, the study found.

“We think of stablecoins as rails,” Mastercard Executive Vice President of Blockchain and Digital Assets Raj Dhamodharan told PYMNTS. “Each stablecoin can be thought of as a global ACH, where the consumer doesn't see the complexity.” Dhamodharan said the technology is powerful but not sufficient on its own. “To unlock the full value, really that orchestration needs to be provided.” Mastercard, which carries an AlphaScala Alpha Score of 71 (Moderate), is positioning its blockchain division to orchestrate payments across multiple rails. The company’s stock page reflects market views on its digital-asset strategy.

Project Agorá offered a competing vision. Rather than placing a stablecoin between two fiat endpoints, Agorá tested making commercial bank deposits programmable and interoperable with central bank money. The pilot showed an average settlement time of about 80 seconds, without forcing users through a separate purchase-and-redemption cycle.

The contrast is not simply stablecoins versus banks. It is between tokenizing one leg of a payment and redesigning the complete transaction. For global trade, optimizing the ledger while ignoring local clearing access, bank-account connectivity, and exchange liquidity will produce impressive settlement metrics without improving the customer experience.

Data from PYMNTS Intelligence’s 2026 Certainty Project shows most middle-market companies remain cautious. Only 13% of firms use stablecoins; just 5% use other cryptocurrencies. The crypto market analysis still shows a gap between infrastructure and adoption.

A near-instant transaction that remains stranded at an exchange, subject to an unfavorable spread or delayed by a bank withdrawal, is not an instant business payment.