Stablecoins are coming to the Balance Sheet - Is your firm ready?

In June 2026, the Financial Conduct Authority published its final rules for the UK's crypto asset regime. The gateway for stablecoin authorisation applications opens on 30 September this year and closes on 28 February 2027.

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The global stablecoin market has grown from roughly $161 billion in June 2024 to over $314 billion by mid-2026, nearly doubling in two years. B2B stablecoin payments surged 733% in 2025, reaching an estimated $226 billion annually and accounting for around 60% of all real stablecoin payment activity. Visa now processes $4.5 billion in annualised stablecoin settlements. These are not speculative trading volumes, they represent supplier payments, cross-border settlement and institutional treasury activity flowing through digital rails.

An EY-Parthenon survey of 350 decision-makers across financial institutions and corporates, published in September 2025, found that while only 13% were actively using stablecoins, 54% of non-users expected to begin implementation by 2026. Among those already transacting, 41% reported cost savings of at least 10%, concentrated in cross-border B2B payments where stablecoins settle in minutes at 0.5-2.5% total cost, compared to 3-7% through traditional correspondent banking.

The direction is clear. The question for accounting firms is whether they are ready to support these clients when the regulatory framework takes effect.

The global stablecoin market remains overwhelmingly denominated in US dollars, USDT and USDC together command over 83% of total supply. But for UK-based businesses, sterling remains fundamental to domestic payments, treasury operations and financial settlement. Corporate treasurers do not want to convert in and out of USD-denominated stablecoins to move pounds across supply chains.

This is why sterling-denominated stablecoins like GBPA, issued by UK-based Agant and registered with the FCA under the Money Laundering Regulations, represent an important development. GBPA is designed as a fully-backed, transparent digital representation of the pound, available across Ethereum, Base, Tempo and Solana, creating multi-chain infrastructure for institutional digital payments in sterling.

At Nephos Group, we have been appointed as Agant's proof of reserves attestation partner, providing independent ISAE 3000 assurance that GBPA's reserves are maintained on a one-to-one basis. This kind of independent verification is rapidly becoming a baseline expectation, not an optional extra, as the UK moves toward a regulated stablecoin regime.

As Reuben Blamey, co-founder and COO of Agant, puts it: "Trust is fundamental to stablecoin adoption, particularly as institutions begin integrating digital assets into payments, treasury and settlement. Independent reserve attestations provide our customers with additional confidence that GBPA is fully backed and that correct financial controls are in place."

Here is the challenge. Deloitte's Q2 2025 CFO Signals survey found that 42% of finance executives cited complexity around accounting and controls as a top barrier to cryptocurrency adoption, second only to price volatility at 43%. That finding should concern every managing partner at a UK accountancy firm. When clients are ready to move, they will need advisors who understand both established assurance standards and the technical realities of blockchain infrastructure. Most firms cannot offer that today.

Consider what stablecoin adoption actually requires from an accounting perspective. Proof of reserves attestation demands real-time or near-real-time verification of on-chain holdings against off-chain bank balances. Cross-border stablecoin payments create multi-jurisdictional tax obligations that shift, depending on which blockchain a transaction settles on and where the counterparties are domiciled. Corporate portfolios holding stablecoins alongside traditional assets need valuation methodologies, fair value assessments and disclosure frameworks that most audit teams have never encountered.

Fund managers allocating to digital asset strategies will expect their accountants to handle custody verification, staking income recognition and the tax treatment of yield-bearing stablecoin positions. CFOs integrating stablecoins into treasury operations will need guidance on VAT treatment, capital gains implications and reporting obligations under Making Tax Digital.

These are not future problems. They are emerging now, and the firms that invest in building this capability ahead of the October 2027 regime commencement, will be positioned to serve the next wave of institutional clients.

The cross-border dimension deserves particular attention. Juniper Research projects that international B2B stablecoin payments will reach $5 trillion by 2035, up from $13.4 billion this year. As stablecoins become a standard tool for cross-border settlement, the tax advisory challenge multiplies. A UK company using a sterling stablecoin to pay a supplier in Singapore via a smart contract on Ethereum raises questions that sit across multiple regulatory regimes simultaneously.

Accounting firms that want to serve multinational clients moving into digital payment infrastructure will need practitioners who can navigate crypto-specific tax treaties, transfer pricing implications and the evolving patchwork of stablecoin regulation across jurisdictions from the EU's MiCA framework to the GENIUS Act in the United States.