Stablecoin settlement: how money gets from USDC to a local bank account

Stablecoin settlement is the use of a fiat-pegged token, usually USDC or USDT, to move value between two parties on a blockchain instead of through a chain of correspondent banks. For a merchant, settlement is complete when the payee can spend the money. In most countries, that means local currency in a bank account, paid through a domestic rail such as SPEI in Mexico or Bre-B in Colombia.

Visa already settles with some of its issuers and acquirers this way, at a $7 billion annualized run rate in April 2026. Most of the cost sits at the two ends of the payment, where the stablecoin is bought and sold, the parties are checked, and the money is paid out. Counting those on- and off-ramp costs, the Bank for International Settlements notes that a cross-border stablecoin payment can cost as much as a bank transfer, or more.

dLocal launched Stablecoin Full in April 2026 to connect stablecoin funding and settlement with local payment rails. This guide follows the money through each step of that journey.

Three things people mean by stablecoin settlement

The term covers three different arrangements, and the table below separates them.

Most merchant questions are about the third model, the stablecoin sandwich, in which neither the payer nor the payee handles crypto. Our overview of settlement models explains the alternatives: cross-border settlement in a hard currency, local-to-local settlement, and FX@Transfer, where the merchant chooses when to convert and send funds abroad.

Stablecoin cross-border payments: where the time and the cost go

Comparisons between stablecoins and wires usually set "seconds" against "three to five days". Recent data on bank payments gives a more precise picture:

• SWIFT reported in July 2026 that 75% of payments on its network reach the beneficiary's bank within 10 minutes. Around 80% of the total processing time is spent in the last mile, after the payment reaches that bank.
• Business payments are slower. The Financial Stability Board's October 2025 progress report found that only 2.2% of retail B2B cross-border payment services credited the recipient within an hour.
• In the same report, the average cost of a cross-border B2B payment for micro, small and medium-sized businesses was 1.6%. The foreign-exchange margin accounted for 87.1% of that cost.

A stablecoin shortens the middle of the journey and lets money move on weekends. The cost of currency conversion and the checks at the destination stay with the payment, as the next table shows.

What a stablecoin removes, and what stays with the payment

The table below separates the frictions a stablecoin leg can reduce from the ones that stay.

How much money do stablecoin payments move today

Headline figures for stablecoin volume run into the trillions of dollars, but most of that is trading, internal transfers and automated activity. Studies that strip those flows out give smaller, more useful numbers:

• McKinsey and Artemis Analytics estimated that stablecoin payments reached about $390 billion in 2025, roughly 0.02% of global payment volume. McKinsey put B2B stablecoin payments at about $226 billion of that 2025 total, close to 60%.
• Allium, which classifies each transfer by use after removing exchange trading, decentralized finance (DeFi) and automated flows, estimated $482 billion in stablecoin payments from January to September 2026. That is 45% more than a year earlier, driven by more frequent, smaller payments.
• By region, McKinsey puts 2025 payments sent from Latin America and from Africa below $1 billion each, against $245 billion from Asia. Chainalysis, which counts all on-chain value received, exchange and trading flows included, found over $47 billion in stablecoin flows in Mexico alone between July 2025 and June 2026. The gap reflects what each source measures: payments only, or all on-chain activity.

Collections: get paid in local currency, settle in USDC

Most writing on stablecoin settlement covers money going out. Merchants that sell in many countries need the reverse: customers pay in pesos, rupees, or shillings, and the merchant wants one balance; it can move quickly. Stablecoins fit in two ways:

• Collect locally, settle in stablecoins. Customers pay with methods they already use, such as OXXO in Mexico or PSE in Colombia. dLocal collects the local currency and, through the Settlement module of Stablecoin Full, consolidates collections from eligible countries into one stablecoin balance.
• Accept stablecoins at checkout. Where available, merchants can accept stablecoins through dLocal without holding them and settle in US dollars or stablecoins. Card chargebacks don't apply, because these payments run outside card networks.

With dLocal's payins, the merchant picks the settlement currency in eligible markets: US dollars, euros, pounds, supported stablecoins, or selected local currencies. Since October 1, 2026, Brazil has barred eFX providers from using virtual assets to settle with their counterparties abroad, as the Brazil section explains.

Stablecoin treasury management: what pre-funding costs

Pre-funding is the friction most finance teams can price. A platform that keeps $1 million in each of three payout countries ties up $3 million. At an 8% cost of capital, that buffer has an opportunity cost of about $240,000 a year, before fees and any interest earned (illustrative figures).

Funding payouts with stablecoins on demand can shrink that buffer, because value arrives in minutes, even outside banking hours. The provider at the receiving end supplies the local-currency liquidity.

The stablecoin sandwich and when to skip it

The stablecoin sandwich is a fiat-to-fiat payment with a stablecoin in the middle. Local currency is converted into a stablecoin, moved on-chain, and converted into another local currency at the destination.

The model works well in three situations:

• The payer already holds dollars or stablecoins, such as a treasury kept partly in USDC.
• The destination has an active dollar-stablecoin market. Chainalysis measured $1.8 billion a month in stablecoin flows on corridors touching Mexico in June 2026, about four times the early-2024 level.
• Payouts must leave on weekends or outside banking hours.

A direct local payout in fiat can be the better choice in three other cases:

• Both currencies have deep, regulated FX markets, so one direct conversion can cost less than the two conversions of a sandwich.
• The two countries' fast payment systems are interlinked. The CPMI, the BIS committee on payment systems, noted in 2023 that such links, once they reach sufficient coverage, may weaken the case for a stablecoin.
• The destination restricts the stablecoin leg. Brazil’s rules restrict eFX providers from using virtual assets to settle with foreign counterparties; the restriction applies to that eFX settlement leg.

Follow one B2B stablecoin payout: from USDC to a supplier in Mexico

A worked example shows where each cost and each record appears. The amounts are illustrative.

A US marketplace owes a supplier in Monterrey MXN 850,000. The marketplace keeps part of its treasury in USDC and wants the supplier paid the same day, without opening a Mexican bank account.

1. The marketplace sends the payout instruction. It includes the supplier's name, the amount in pesos, the purpose of the payment and the supplier's CLABE, the 18-digit account number used by Mexican banks. The marketplace logs it under an internal payout ID.
2. The marketplace funds its balance by transferring USDC on a supported network, such as Solana or Polygon, instead of sending a wire. The transfer is complete once the blockchain confirms it, and its transaction hash works as the payment's unique ID on the blockchain.
3. The provider that receives the USDC checks the sending wallet against sanctions and risk lists. It also obtains the payer and payee data that the Travel Rule requires in that jurisdiction, much like the details that travel with a bank wire. If the marketplace sends from a self-hosted wallet (one it controls directly, without an exchange or custodian), it may be asked to prove that it controls that wallet.
4. The provider converts USDC into pesos, directly or through a licensed partner, depending on the corridor. The exchange rate and the spread apply here, so the rate should be quoted before the marketplace sends funds. The trade gets an FX reference.
5. The pesos reach the supplier's CLABE as an ordinary SPEI transfer, identified by its own tracking key.

The supplier never holds crypto: from its side, the payment is a peso transfer from a Mexican bank. The marketplace's finance team ends up with four identifiers for one payment: payout ID, transaction hash, FX reference and SPEI tracking key. Reconciliation is simpler when the provider links all four in its reporting, so ask how they come back before you sign.

Business payout times depend on the amount, the checks and the receiving bank. For reference, USDC-funded transfers in dLocal's consumer remittance partnership with Félix typically arrived in under two minutes in testing.

The last mile, country by country

What matters to a merchant is what happens after the stablecoin arrives. The table lists the domestic rail that completes the payment in six countries and one stablecoin rule to know in each.

The table describes each market, not dLocal's coverage, and summarizes rules as of October 22, 2026.

Brazil: FX rules for virtual-asset flows and a specific eFX settlement restriction

Brazil has the most detailed stablecoin rules in the table. Four dates matter for anyone settling into or out of reais:

• February 2, 2026. Resolution 521 brings international payments in virtual assets, transfers to or from self-custodied wallets and stablecoin trades by providers under FX market rules. A dedicated virtual asset company (SPSAV) is capped at USD 100,000 per international payment when the counterparty isn't authorized in Brazil's FX market.
• May 4, 2026. Providers report these operations to the central bank by the fifth day of the next month, with the purpose of each international payment.
• October 1, 2026. Resolution 561 updates the rules for eFX, the regulated service that authorized banks and payment institutions use for cross-border purchases and international transfers. eFX providers must settle with their counterparties abroad through an FX transaction or a non-resident account in reais, and can't use virtual assets for that settlement.
• January 1, 2027. Resolution 584 adds a precautionary 24-hour wait, counted from when funds arrive, before transfers of virtual assets to foreign virtual asset firms or self-custodied wallets. It applies to operations above USD 10,000, per operation or per client per day, and to smaller ones that the provider's risk policy flags. Providers can lift it earlier after a documented risk review.

Together, these rules shape which regulated institutions may handle the relevant virtual-asset flows and what reporting and data requirements apply. Resolution 561’s restriction is specific to settlement between an eFX provider and its foreign counterparty; it should not be read as a general ban on stablecoins or all cross-border payment structures.

Who checks what in a stablecoin flow

Regulated on- and off-ramps are where fiat enters and leaves the blockchain. BIS researchers describe them as choke points where KYC and anti-money-laundering checks can be enforced. The table shows who is regulated at each leg.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which sets global anti-money-laundering standards, uses USD/EUR 1,000 as the threshold above which virtual asset providers must run due diligence on occasional transactions. In July 2026, it reported that 83% of the jurisdictions it surveyed had passed Travel Rule laws, up from 73% in 2025. The same report flags stablecoins and self-hosted wallets as risks to address.

Self-hosted wallets (called self-custodied wallets in Brazil's rules and in dLocal's API) get extra scrutiny:

• In the EU, a provider must assess whether a self-hosted address belongs to its customer when a transfer exceeds EUR 1,000 (EBA guidelines).
• In Brazil, a provider must identify the owner of a self-custodied wallet and document how it checks the assets' origin and destination (Resolution 521).

For a wider view of the rules by region, see our guide to payment regulations in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Eight questions for a stablecoin settlement provider

Asking whether a provider is licensed is a good start. These eight questions show who does what in your corridor.

1. Which legal entity receives my stablecoins, and where is it licensed? A good answer names the entity and its license for each country. An approval in principle is a different thing: Nigeria's SEC said in August 2026 that approvals under its incubation program are not final licenses.
2. Who converts into local currency, and how is the rate set? Ask for a quote before you send funds and for the spread on your statement.
3. Which tokens and networks do you accept? Ask what happens to funds sent on an unsupported network.
4. Can you send payouts in batches? Platforms paying sellers, contractors or creators need one file or API call to reach thousands of beneficiaries.
5. Who transmits Travel Rule data, and what happens when a counterparty can't provide it? A good answer names the process and the partner that runs it.
6. How are payments held for review handled? Ask how holds are communicated, who your contact is and how funds are released or returned.
7. Which identifiers come back for reconciliation, and where? Ask whether the four from the example above appear together in one report.
8. How do local rules shape the flow in my corridors? For Brazil, ask how it is structured under Resolutions 521, 561 and 584.

How dLocal connects stablecoins to local rails

dLocal launched Stablecoin Full on April 21, 2026. It brings six modules under one API (Funding, Settlement, On-Ramp, Off-Ramp, Checkout and Payouts) and covers 60+ markets.

"With Stablecoin Full, we treat stablecoins as just another local payment method inside dLocal's platform." Marcelo Dutilh, Product Lead for Stablecoins at dLocal, at the launch.

dLocal is a payments infrastructure provider, not an exchange, a custodian or a stablecoin issuer. Its stablecoin flows run through licensed and regulated partners and local rails, and Travel Rule controls are built into its stablecoin products wherever they apply. For its payments business, dLocal holds 40 licenses or registrations and 9 regulatory authorizations across 26 markets (2026 investor presentation).

Here is what businesses can do with it:

• Send one payout or thousands. With dLocal Payouts, a business funds its balance in USD, EUR or, in eligible markets, stablecoins. It sends its payouts by API, file or SFTP, and dLocal pays each beneficiary in local currency.
• Pay sellers in their own currency. Marketplaces can onboard sellers, split funds and pay each seller in local currency through dLocal for Platforms.
• Pay out to a wallet. Where the corridor allows it, payouts can go to a beneficiary's USDC or USDT wallet, and the crypto payouts documentation lists the required fields.
• Fund or settle in stablecoins, with a wallet on a supported network: USDC on Arbitrum, Base, BNB Smart Chain, Ethereum, Polygon or Solana, and USDT on BNB Smart Chain, Ethereum, Polygon or Tron.

dLocal's stablecoin work started in 2022 as a treasury use case and has since grown into merchant funding and global payouts. These are the main steps since then:

• September 2025: joined the Fireblocks Network for Payments as an on- and off-ramp partner.
• November 2025: joined Circle Payments Network to pay out in local currency for its participants.
• February 2026: partnered with Stable Sea on B2B cross-border payments.
• April 2026: launched Stablecoin Full and partnered with Damisa on settlement in Asia-Pacific.

On the Q4 2025 earnings call in March 2026, CEO Pedro Arnt described three stablecoin segments: payments and settlement, on- and off-ramps, and corporate treasury. In 2025, dLocal processed $41 billion in payments across more than 60 countries and 1,000+ local payment methods. To check a corridor, asset or payout method, talk to dLocal's team.