Stablecoins Emerge as Cross-Border Settlement Tool Across Middle East-Asia Corridor

The UAE and Singapore are serving as key testing grounds for cross-border finance as stablecoins transition from cryptocurrency trading into corporate treasury, settlement, and trade payments, according to industry experts speaking at the First Abu Dhabi Bank Middle East-Asia Summit in Singapore. Speakers noted that businesses navigating multiple currencies and compliance systems can use digital money to shorten settlement times and free up working capital.

Visa's head of digital currencies in the Asia-Pacific region, Nischint Sanghavi, said the company aims to enable interoperability across various forms of money and financial infrastructure, positioning stablecoins alongside traditional banks rather than as a replacement. SB Seker, head of APAC at Binance, observed that APAC digital asset adoption is expanding at approximately 69% to 70% year-on-year, particularly where conventional banking faces friction, adding that merchants increasingly accept stablecoins due to instant settlement.

While Singapore's domestic retail payment infrastructure already operates efficiently, Dr. Bo Bai noted that the utility of stablecoins strengthens significantly when transferring value across borders between differing regulatory environments. Wang Hao, chief executive of Changer.ae, remarked that the largest efficiency gains lie beyond the UAE-Singapore corridor, especially across ASEAN and North Asia where banking systems and currency regimes are more fragmented.

Both the UAE and Singapore laid early groundwork for digital assets, spanning Abu Dhabi Global Market's 2018 framework, Singapore's 2020 Payment Services Act and 2023 stablecoin regime, Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority in 2022, and subsequent UAE Central Bank stablecoin rules. Institutional adoption is visible in instruments such as Singapore's XSGD, the UAE's dirham-backed DDSC token, DBS Bank's tokenised deposit pilots with Ant International, and the UAE's cross-border Digital Dirham transaction to China via the mBridge platform.