Stablecoin Treasury Exposes Trapped Corporate Cash

Nium CEO Prajit Nanu says the real stablecoin treasury prize is not consumer checkout or crypto speculation, but corporate cash trapped inside fragmented bank accounts that companies can’t see in real time. That framing matters because it shifts stablecoins out of the crypto trading debate and into a CFO problem: usable liquidity exists, but it sits across entities, currencies, banks and jurisdictions with no clean live view.

In a PYMNTS “Summer School” session, Nanu argued that stablecoins are most useful as a settlement layer for corporate treasury, according to PYMNTS. The company making that case has reason to care. Nium itself maintains hundreds of bank accounts across roughly 65 to 70 countries, and Nanu said even a global payments company built around money movement does not always have a continuous dollar view of its own cash.

That is the sharp point. If Nium struggles to see every usable dollar at once, most multinationals are likely wrestling with a worse version of the same problem.

Stablecoin Treasury Is Chasing Cash Companies Already Own

The strongest version of Nanu’s argument is not that stablecoins replace banks tomorrow. It’s that stablecoin treasury tools could pressure the slowest, least visible parts of corporate money movement.

Global companies may look liquid in aggregate while still having cash stuck in the wrong entity, account or currency. PYMNTS describes companies with multiple legal entities, each carrying its own bank accounts, payroll obligations, tax demands, suppliers and regulators. That structure creates a practical problem: the group can be cash-rich on paper while a specific entity still needs funds positioned days ahead of time.

Karen Webster, PYMNTS CEO, put it plainly:

“It’s trapped dollars,”

Nanu’s answer is to treat stablecoins less like payment tokens and more like a treasury rail. He drew a hard line between hype and actual utility.

“Today, stablecoins are like a drug trying to treat 20 different problems,” Nanu said.

That’s the useful critique. Stablecoins have been sold as remittance rails, faster payments, deposit alternatives and the foundation for a new financial system. Nanu is narrowing the pitch. The near-term enterprise use case is not everything. It is settlement value.

“Where we see a significant amount of opportunity is stablecoin not as a payments value, but as a settlement value,” Nanu said. “Where we think stablecoin has the biggest value as is a treasury layer across all the entities, where I can move money instantly among my entities.”

Nium’s Own Cash Map Shows the Visibility Gap

The source material gives several hard numbers, and they point in the same direction: corporate liquidity is fragmented, while infrastructure providers are trying to make stablecoin rails look less like crypto and more like finance operations.

The $30 trillion figure from PYMNTS’ session description is the most important scale marker. It refers to money sitting in nostro and vostro accounts, bank accounts used to hold funds across correspondent banking relationships. That cash supports global settlement, but the PYMNTS framing is that some of it could be freed if institutions reduced prefunded balances across corridors.

XOOMAR analysis: this is why Nanu’s pitch lands better as working-capital infrastructure than as a crypto product. A treasurer does not need a new ideology. They need fewer idle balances, faster internal funding and a reliable answer to a basic question: how much cash can we actually use right now?

This connects to a broader CFO theme we’ve covered before: finance leaders increasingly treat uncertainty itself as a cost, as seen in Legal Spend Shock Forces $100 Million CFOs to Rethink Risk. Stablecoins only fit the treasury stack if they reduce that uncertainty rather than add a new layer of operational risk.

Stablecoins Could Turn Overnight Balances Into Usable Dollar Control

PYMNTS gives a concrete example. A company collects Brazilian reais during the day, parks value in a dollar-backed stablecoin after hours, then flips it back to reais before business resumes. The company keeps local operating currency available, but it also gains a clearer dollar-denominated view of liquidity across entities.

That is the practical mechanics behind the stablecoin treasury thesis. The prize is not just speed. It is control.

Stablecoins can move value outside traditional cut-off windows, but Nanu’s real focus is the treasury layer: using tokenized dollar value to shift economic exposure among entities without forcing every local operating unit to drain the currency it needs for payroll, taxes, suppliers or regulatory obligations.

The catch is brutal. Treasurers are paid to kill uncertainty, and stablecoins still carry plenty of it.

Webster captured the adoption problem:

“The certainty that is promised has a lot of uncertainty associated with making that decision,”

Nanu agreed that this is the core test. Corporate users do not want to choose a blockchain, monitor token balances or calculate gas fees. They want a defined financial outcome.

“The treasurers really care about: Is my money safe? Is this in a regulated setup? Is this fast? Is this low cost? What’s the yield?” Nanu said. “These are very simple questions.”

If the provider starts talking about chains, tokens and variable transaction costs, Nanu said the sale is over.

“Boom, you’ve lost the treasurer,”

XOOMAR analysis: stablecoin treasury adoption depends on making the crypto layer disappear. The product has to feel like controlled liquidity movement, not a wallet experiment.

Banks Keep the Trust Layer While Fintechs Hide the Stablecoin Plumbing

Nanu does not frame banks as casualties. He frames them as the institutions still holding the trust layer.

PYMNTS says banks remain strong in dollars, euros and pounds, but Nanu argued their emerging-market coverage can get patchy. In those markets, companies often pre-fund accounts and hold larger liquidity buffers because the settlement path is less predictable. That is where Nium wants to sit: not as a bank replacement, but as infrastructure that helps banks compete in cross-border payments and emerging-market currencies.

“We are the FinTech that helps banks compete with FinTechs,” Nanu said.

That matters because the winning enterprise model may be hybrid. PYMNTS’ session page says stablecoins sit alongside Swift, local schemes and tokenised deposits as one of several rails. It also says the value increasingly sits in the layer that routes intelligently between them.

Nium’s own product strategy points in the same direction. In a March 30, 2026 announcement, the company launched a dual-network stablecoin card issuance platform spanning Visa and Mastercard, with stablecoin-funded cards issued through a single API and conversion into fiat at the point of sale where supported. Nium said the platform is backed by more than 40 regulatory licenses and reaches 190+ countries.

That is not the same use case as Nanu’s treasury-layer argument, but it supports the same thesis: enterprises do not want to assemble separate banking sponsors, network relationships, compliance filings and settlement processes. They want one controlled interface.

Financial institutions face the same trust problem in other corners of finance, too. As we reported in Velera CEO Warns Credit Unions Their Trust Edge Is Fading, trust does not defend itself. In stablecoins, banks may keep the advantage only if they pair trust with faster infrastructure.

Treasury Desks Are the First Adoption Test for Stablecoin Treasury

The strongest forecast grounded in the source is narrow: stablecoins are more likely to enter enterprise finance through treasury desks, cross-border settlement and liquidity movement than through mass consumer checkout first.

That does not mean banks disappear. The source points the other way. Banks bring regulation, relationships, deposit funding and institutional trust. Fintech infrastructure providers bring local connectivity, software and settlement capability. Card networks are also moving into the picture through Nium’s Visa and Mastercard platform.

The gating factor is not whether stablecoins can move money. Nium’s argument is that they already can. The gating factor is whether CFOs and treasurers can adopt them without inheriting chain selection, wallet risk, variable fees or unclear operating controls.

Evidence that would strengthen Nanu’s thesis: more regulated networks processing institutional stablecoin volume, more banks using stablecoin settlement to reduce prefunded balances, and more corporate treasury products that present stablecoins as invisible settlement infrastructure. Evidence that would weaken it: treasurers rejecting the rails because safety, regulation, cost, speed or yield remain too uncertain.

The test is simple. Stablecoins become serious in corporate finance when they stop being marketed as crypto and start helping a treasurer answer one question instantly: where is the money we can actually use?

Disclaimer: This XOOMAR analysis is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not financial, investment, legal, tax, or professional advice. It does not provide buy, sell, hold, price-target, portfolio, or personalized recommendations. Verify information independently and consult qualified professionals before making decisions.

The Bottom Line

• Stablecoins are being positioned as infrastructure for corporate liquidity, not just crypto trading.
• Multinationals may have cash on paper but still struggle to access it across entities, currencies and jurisdictions.
• If treasury visibility improves, companies could reduce delays and inefficiencies in global money movement.