A new report from Bain & Company, a global consulting firm that accounts for one-third of the three largest consulting firms along with McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), says stablecoins will be central to the future of wholesale banking.
Bain & Company published this report on April 29, arguing that stablecoins and tokenized deposits are no longer considered speculative crypto products, but rather strategic tools for moving funds across wholesale banking.
Big 3 consulting firm Bain & Company backs stablecoin
Bain & Company recently released a report titled “From Hype to Hard Value: Stablecoins and the Great Rewiring of Wholesale Banking.” The report was written by a team of six including Ricardo Correia, Karim Ahmad and Philipp Grimig.
In his report, Bain defines the current market trend as a “massive rewiring of wholesale banking.” The company claims that traditional banking has “friction issues” due to slow cross-border payments.
Additionally, collateral management ties up billions of dollars in idle capital and fragments treasury operations. Stablecoins, on the other hand, are “always on” and programmable. Trades are settled instantly instead of days, and there are no multiple intermediaries involved.
Bain argued that stablecoins and tokenized deposits have become an important part of the “future architecture of money movement” and should be treated as a priority by wholesale banks and global companies.
Bain advises financial institutions to prioritize compliance and business integration, with a focus on foreign exchange settlements, derivative collateral management, and corporate financial liquidity.
Why has the CLARITY method stalled?
According to data from DefiLlama, the market capitalization of the stablecoin sector currently stands at $320 billion. The CLARITY Act is needed to allow banks and issuers to safely move that money, and it’s currently stalled. The bill focuses on clearly classifying which digital assets are securities and which are commodities.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) confirmed to Crypto in America host Eleanor Terret that he is pushing for a committee vote on the CLARITY Act in May, but negotiations have been delayed. The GENIUS Act, which specifically focuses on stablecoins, is also moving through the committee.
Cryptopolitan reported that lobbyists for traditional banks argue that they cannot accept any rules that allow crypto platforms to offer interest on stablecoins and could potentially drain trillions of dollars from the traditional banking system.
Notably, as Cryptopolitan reported, the Trump administration downplayed that scenario in an April paper.
Sen. Tillis is reportedly still working on finalizing the bill. He said he wanted to release the document four to five days before the vote so interested parties could preview its contents.
If the committee does not approve the bill by mid-May, the chances of it passing this year will be significantly reduced due to the election schedule. Without these laws, the rewiring described by Bain would not be possible at scale.
