Stables, a platform that builds infrastructure for digital currency transactions, announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with settlement provider Mansa to bridge the gap in Asia’s payment systems.
The region handles 60% of global stablecoin activity, but only 1% of banks there work with the technology. This leaves 150 different local currencies without a proper connection to digital dollar networks.
The deal creates a liquidity channel for Stables’ route network, converting local money into USDT. Mansa has significant capacity and has transferred $394 million across more than 40 currency routes since August 2024.
Mansa will inject short-term liquidity into these currency conversion routes, stabilizing the entry and exit points that handle large volumes of transactions during market fluctuations. This layered infrastructure model is similar to the way traditional fintech companies integrate multiple specialized providers behind a unified interface.
Stables processes over $1.5 billion in payment volume annually and has licenses in Australia, Europe and Canada.
CEO and co-founder of Stables told Cryptopolitan: “By partnering with Mansa, we are providing the deep liquidity needed to transform USDT into a functional instrument for cross-border trading at scale.”
Federal Reserve opens FedNow for cross-border expansion
The partnership comes at a time of major developments in stablecoin infrastructure and regulations affecting the cross-border transfer of digital dollars.
The Federal Reserve has opened a 60-day public comment period on rule changes that would allow FedNow to process its own international transfers. The instant payment network was launched in 2023 for domestic use only.
There are several hurdles. Intermediaries do not automatically solve problems with currency exchange, conflicting rules between countries or the low acceptance of FedNow by US banks. Adding another party to every transaction could make things more complicated rather than faster. Choosing which companies take on the intermediary role is important, especially as card networks like Visa and Mastercard build their own cross-border systems.
According to CEX.io, stablecoin supply reached $315 billion in the first quarter of 2026. But the quarterly increase of $8 billion marked the weakest growth since the fourth quarter of 2023. That’s a significant decline from the third quarter of 2025, when supply increased by $45.7 billion.
Data from DeFiLlama confirmed this, showing that supply increased by $8.05 billion between January 1 and March 31, 2026, reaching $316.8 billion by April 3. Supply only grew by 2.6% while the broader crypto market fell by 21%. This increased the dominance of stablecoins from 9% to 13% of total crypto value.
The trading volume varied. Stablecoins accounted for $8.3 trillion in the first quarter, accounting for 75% of all crypto transactions.
The stablecoin landscape has become more complex since the GENIUS Act provided regulatory clarity last year, as Cryptopolitan previously reported.
Economic Study Shows Limited Impact of Stablecoin Yield Ban
A model of the Council of Economic Advisers found that eliminating stablecoin yield would only increase bank lending by $2.1 billion, or 0.02%, while losing $800 million in consumer welfare. Large banks would provide 76% of all additional loans.
Community banks would add $500 million and increase their lending by 0.026%.
Even under extreme assumptions, additional lending would only reach $531 billion, an increase of 4.4%, with community bank lending increasing by $129 billion, or 6.7%.
