BeInCrypto at MERGE Madrid 2026: Banks Turn to Stablecoin Infrastructure

MERGE Madrid ran from October 27 to 29, opening at Bolsa de Madrid, town’s inventory change, earlier than the principle program moved to Palacio de Cibeles. Luís De Magalhães, our Head of Latin America, and Martin Coxall, our VP of Institutional Partnerships, represented BeInCrypto. 

Key Themes From MERGE Madrid

Much of this system centered on banks transferring past crypto buying and selling to construct the infrastructure behind stablecoins and tokenized property.

Stablecoins Turn Into Payment Rails

Jordan Wain, Global Policy Lead at Chainalysis, mentioned cryptocurrency financial exercise reached about $9.4 trillion between June 2025 and June 2026, down 1.6% yr on yr regardless of weaker markets. Over the identical interval, cross-border stablecoin transfers rose 80%. In his studying, digital property are getting used for actual transactions even when costs fall.

Alexandra Soroko of Visa pointed to stablecoin card settlement, which lets establishments settle obligations seven days per week. She named cross-border enterprise funds and company treasury as the following areas for progress.

Marie Winter, Managing Director of OSL EU, mentioned the corporate is “a MiCA license entity in Austria” and acquired its MiCA license at the start of July. “We are at the moment additionally making use of for a fee establishment license and an EMI license,” she mentioned, with the EU focus “on third-party fee, change companies, on and off-ramp and associated companies.”

Banks Rethink Their Role

“Where are banks earning profits at the moment on digital property? This remains to be the crypto providing they’ve in direction of their purchasers,” mentioned Stijn Vander Straeten, CEO of Crypto Finance Group, a part of Deutsche Börse. Behind that, banks are investing in staking, tokenized deposits and new settlement infrastructure.

Executives from Commerzbank, N26 and Applied Blockchain described banks more and more performing because the infrastructure that lets purchasers use stablecoins, as a substitute of holding massive quantities of them.

Mirko Pfiffner, Senior Solutions Manager at Liechtenstein’s Bank Frick, which has labored in crypto and blockchain for ten years, rejected the concept that the trade now not wants banks. Exchanges, liquidity suppliers and different crypto corporations “are very enormous in fiat they usually nonetheless want banking,” he mentioned. Over the following 5 to ten years, he expects banks to specialize: “not simply have one personal financial institution who’s overseeing all of the completely different elements, however most likely you have got simply fee rails for banking, otherwise you simply have a custody financial institution or buying and selling financial institution.”

António Henriques, CEO of Bison Bank, Portugal’s first CASP inside a licensed financial institution, mentioned the financial institution serves prospects coming instantly from the crypto ecosystem in addition to common banking prospects. “Bison Bank is precisely within the center,” he mentioned. “Both are filling some gaps, and we’re certainly making an attempt to assist them in transferring on this crypto space.”

“It’s not primarily a expertise drawback, it’s an working mannequin concern,” mentioned Shrutisagar Chandrasekaran of Fireblocks. “It’s about individuals, course of and governance.” Luis Nacarino of Santander CIB mentioned new digital cash techniques have to be in a position to speak to each other relatively than function as remoted networks. Alberto Carlos Alonso Temprado of Iberpay mentioned Europe’s fee rails already work properly and blockchain ought to construct on them: “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel. We have to make it higher.”

The remaining day turned to regulation and funding, with supervisors from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus and Luxembourg. Jason Jiang, Chief Business Officer at CertiK, mentioned: “This is our probability to get to know the institutional gamers from Europe.”

Tokenization and AI Agents

Bit2Me CSO Abel Peña mentioned the corporate has acquired authorization to launch STX, a safety token providing for tokenizing shares and bonds, aimed first at medium-sized corporations. On the identical panel, BBVA and Bullish warned that tokenization solely works if buyers have sufficient liquidity to commerce, together with in risky intervals.

Mastercard, Tether and the Cardano Foundation mentioned AI brokers paying on behalf of customers and companies, and why clear permissions and digital identities might be important.

Luis Ayala, Managing Director for Latin America at BitGo, tied a part of the funds shift to agentic wallets, which he described as “a synthetic intelligence agent that, in the long run, is an LLM, however has the power to make a fee on behalf of a pure individual.” He expects their use to unfold from households to corporations: “If this begins to occur at the atomic degree of households, think about the way it can even have an effect on establishments. We are going to see brokers roaming by way of micro-production, micro-processes, micro-services at the institutional degree.”

In an interview with BeInCrypto, TRM Labs’ Guillaume Rodenas mentioned KYC for AI brokers ought to begin with verifying the individual or firm that controls the agent.

BeInCrypto on Stage

Our Head of Latin America hosted the Institutional Summit stage at Bolsa de Madrid, and moderated two stablecoin panels.

Western Union and Anchorage Digital: USDPT

On stage:

• Malcolm Clarke, Global Head of Digital Assets, Western Union
• Emilio Rivero Coello, Product Manager for Stablecoin Correspondent Banking, Anchorage Digital

Western Union launched the dollar-backed token on Solana in May, issued by Anchorage, beginning in Bolivia and the Philippines, two remittance-heavy markets. Western Union positions it as a alternative for the rails it makes use of to settle with brokers, not as a client product. For Anchorage, the goal is to exchange pre-funded correspondent accounts with stablecoin balances, slicing settlement from days to minutes.

Building Europe’s Regulated Euro Stablecoin: The Qivalis Consortium in Practice

On stage:

• Vid Hribar, Institutional Partnerships, Qivalis
• Elma Saric, Stablecoin Strategic Area Lead, Raiffeisen Bank International, a founding member
• Niccolò Bardoscia, Head of Digital Asset Trading & Investments, IMI CIB, Intesa Sanpaolo
• Tania Griffith, Commercial Director, UK & Europe, Ripple

The Amsterdam-based consortium has grown from 9 founding banks to 37 establishments throughout 15 international locations. It plans to run beneath MiCA, supervised by the Dutch central financial institution, on public Ethereum. Euro stablecoins whole lower than $1 billion in market cap, in opposition to greater than $300 billion for dollar-backed tokens.

Madrid, On Record

Malcolm Clarke, Global Head of Digital Assets, Western Union. Why the corporate is backing its personal stablecoin, USDPT, to unlock capital parked with correspondent banks, plus its crypto-to-cash service with Rain and Visa and his doubts in regards to the hype round AI agent funds. Read the interview

Guillaume Rodenas, Sales Account Director France, TRM Labs. Who is accountable when AI brokers transfer cash, why KYC ought to begin with the human behind the agent, and why European banks differ extra in willingness than readiness for on-chain danger. Read the interview

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