On-site SWIFT East Asia Head: Stablecoins Will Not Disrupt the Existing Financial System, Their Core Purpose Is to Serve Specific Customer Groups and Scenarios

According to a live report from Jinse Finance, on August 26 at the WeX2025 event held in Japan, Mitsuru Kayahana, Head of East Asia at SWIFT, stated that stablecoins, as a form of digital currency, will not significantly alter the existing financial system. Their core value lies in serving specific customer groups and scenarios. As long as banks continue to act as intermediaries and service providers, traditional cross-border payment processes—such as SWIFT’s messaging system and the correspondent banking model—will coexist with new payment tools like stablecoins for the long term. He believes that in the future, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), private stablecoins, and tokenized deposits will coexist in a diverse ecosystem. SWIFT will leverage its standardized messaging formats to build interoperability bridges and prevent fragmentation of the financial ecosystem. Currently, SWIFT is collaborating with institutions in East Asia, including Japan and South Korea, to explore compliant applications of stablecoins in cross-border transactions. Looking ahead, SWIFT will continue to maintain “currency, platform, and network neutrality,” providing open connectivity to all regulated and security-compliant networks, and driving the global financial infrastructure from “fragmentation” toward “interoperability.” SWIFT’s core objective is to ensure the seamless flow of different forms of digital assets (such as CBDCs and stablecoins) and traditional currencies, ultimately enhancing the efficiency and inclusiveness of the global financial system.