Many banks are taking steps to “tokenise” their deposits, allowing them to be used easily for blockchain-based transactions. And they are reducing their fat fees on cross-border payments. In other words, faced with new competition, they are cutting costs and increasing efficiency. This is as it should be.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/09/stablecoins-competing-with-banks.html#comments
People cite low costs as a reason to use stablecoins without citing the most relevant competition. They cite the irrelevant competition which is high cost bank "wires" and credit cards.
The relevant competition has low costs. The marginal cost of any value transmittal system is almost zero in a centralized system. For example, GCash in the Philippines, claims to have about 80 million users, so two thirds of the population. Amounts in total that are less than roughly 1000 USD can be sent for free and above that amount the fee is about 30 U.S. cents. Since the marginal cost in the U.S. is also almost zero, there is no reason why a system similar to GCash cannot operate in the U.S. or anywhere in the world with similar fees. So the question was whether banks will lower their fees. In my experience, they already have. There is room to go lower yet. Competition for stablecoins is dynamic and that is seldom acknowledged.
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