--- title: "Stablecoin payments business case template: how to pitch cross-border stablecoin payouts to your CFO" seoTitle: "Stablecoin payments business case template for CFOs" description: "A fill-in business case for cross-border stablecoin payouts: cost baseline, proposed flow, cost model, risks, pilot plan, and the decision to ask for." date: "2026-10-15" updated: "2026-10-15" category: "payments" author: "BlindPay Team" faq: - q: "What should a stablecoin payments business case include?" a: "Seven sections: the problem in one paragraph, a cost baseline for today's cross-border payouts, the proposed stablecoin-to-local-rail flow in plain words, a cost model built from live quotes, the risks and their controls, a capped pilot plan, and the specific decision you want. Each section should carry a number or a named owner, not adjectives." - q: "How do I estimate the cost of today's cross-border payments?" a: "Pull the last three to six months of payouts and add every cost line: wire fees, the FX markup against the mid-market rate at the time of each payment, intermediary deductions, the carrying cost of balances you pre-fund abroad, and the staff hours spent on returns and investigations. Divide by the amount actually delivered to get a cost per delivered dollar." - q: "Can I put a provider's fees in the business case before signing?" a: "Use live quotes, not brochures. Request quotes for the same amount, corridor, and minute from each shortlisted provider and record the delivered amount. Providers that price per quote show the full fee before you commit, so the business case can show a real number for your top corridors instead of a headline rate." - q: "What risks will a CFO ask about first?" a: "Expect four: what happens if a stablecoin loses its peg, who holds the money at each step, what happens when a payout fails, and whether the flow is legal in each corridor. Answer each with a control and an owner. Holding periods measured in minutes, locked quotes, and written refund rules usually settle the first three." - q: "How big should a stablecoin payments pilot be?" a: "Small enough that a total loss would not hurt and large enough to measure. A common shape is one corridor, a monthly cap your treasury sets, 60 to 90 days, and three success metrics agreed in advance: cost per delivered dollar, time from approval to recipient credit, and the share of payouts that needed manual handling." - q: "Does the business case need legal review?" a: "Yes, a short one. Ask counsel to confirm three things for each pilot corridor: that paying recipients in local currency through a licensed provider fits your obligations, which records you must keep, and whether your own business needs a license for the flow you describe. Put the answer and its date in the risk section." --- A stablecoin payments business case shows your CFO three numbers: what cross-border payouts cost today, what the same payouts would cost on a stablecoin-to-local-rail flow, and what a capped pilot costs to find out. Fill in seven sections: problem, baseline, proposed flow, cost model, risks, pilot, and the decision you ask for. The template below is built for finance and operations leads who need approval, not a lecture on blockchains. If you need the mechanism first, start with [what a stablecoin sandwich is](/resources/more/what-is-a-stablecoin-sandwich): fiat in, stablecoin across, fiat out. **Key takeaways** - A CFO approves a measured change in cost per delivered dollar, not a technology. Lead with your own payout data. - Build the baseline from every cost line, including FX markup and pre-funded balances, not only wire fees. - Price the proposed flow from live quotes collected on the same day, for your top corridors. - Name each risk with a control and an owner. Unowned risks are what stall approvals. - Ask for a capped pilot with three pre-agreed metrics and a stop rule. ## What should a stablecoin payments business case contain? Seven sections, each with a number or an owner. Keep the whole document to two pages plus an appendix with the data. | Section | What goes in it | Who supplies it | | --- | --- | --- | | 1. Problem | One paragraph: the corridors, the pain, the cost of doing nothing | Payments or operations lead | | 2. Cost baseline | All-in cost of the last 3 to 6 months of payouts, per corridor | Finance, from bank statements and the payout ledger | | 3. Proposed flow | The new flow in four plain steps, with who does what | Payments lead | | 4. Cost model | Formula plus live quotes for your top corridors | Payments lead with finance | | 5. Risks and controls | Each risk, its control, its owner | Compliance, treasury, engineering | | 6. Pilot plan | Corridor, cap, duration, success metrics, stop rule | Payments lead | | 7. Decision | The exact approval you need, by when | Sponsor | ## How do you write the problem statement? Start with your payouts, not the market. One paragraph, three facts: where the money goes, what goes wrong, and what it costs. ```text PROBLEM We pay [number] recipients a month in [countries], about [amount] per month. Today these payouts run as [international wires / a money transfer provider]. Recipients wait [X] business days on average and [Y]% of payments need manual follow-up (returns, missing amounts, tracking requests). Over the last [N] months the all-in cost was [Z]% of the amount delivered. If nothing changes, we expect [volume growth] to raise this to [amount] next year. ``` Then add one line of outside context so the reader knows you are not alone. The World Bank's [Remittance Prices Worldwide report](https://remittanceprices.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/2026-04/RPW_main_report_and_annex_Q325.pdf), published in April 2026, put the global average cost of sending $200 at 6.36% in the third quarter of 2025. The G20 target for retail cross-border payments is an average of no more than 1% by end-2027, per the [Financial Stability Board](https://www.fsb.org/work-of-the-fsb/financial-innovation-and-structural-change/cross-border-payments/g20-targets-for-enhancing-cross-border-payments-2/). ## How do you build the cost baseline? Add up every cost line, then divide by what recipients actually received. Wire fees alone usually understate the real number. 1. **Wire and transfer fees.** Sender bank fees plus any fee the recipient's bank charged. [OUR, SHA, and BEN](/resources/more/hidden-fees-international-wires-our-sha-ben) decide who pays which. 2. **FX markup.** Compare the rate you got with the mid-market rate at the time of each payment. This line is often the biggest. 3. **Intermediary deductions.** Amounts that disappeared between sending and arrival. The Federal Reserve's [March 2026 FEDS Note](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/payment-stablecoins-and-cross-border-payments-benefits-and-implications-for-monetary-policy-20260330.html) notes that over 60 percent of wholesale payments are routed through one or more intermediaries, each a place where fees and delays add up. 4. **Pre-funded balances.** Money parked abroad to pay locally, times your cost of capital. [The working capital formula](/resources/more/cost-of-pre-funding-working-capital) shows the math. 5. **Operations time.** Hours spent on returns, investigations, and recipient tickets, times a loaded hourly rate. The result is your [cost per delivered dollar](/resources/more/cost-per-delivered-dollar). Put it in a table per corridor: ```text COST BASELINE, [period] Corridor Payments Delivered Fees FX markup Pre-funding Ops All-in % US to Brazil [n] [amount] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] US to Mexico [n] [amount] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Total [n] [amount] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] ``` ## How do you describe the proposed flow without crypto jargon? Describe it as a payment flow with four steps and name who does each one. The reader should never need to learn what a blockchain is. ```text PROPOSED FLOW 1. We fund each payout in US dollars or in USDC, a regulated dollar stablecoin. 2. The provider gives us a quote that locks the exchange rate and every fee before we approve. 3. The dollars move to the provider as USDC, which settles in minutes, any day. 4. The provider converts to local currency and pays the recipient's bank account over the local rail (Pix in Brazil, SPEI in Mexico). Recipients receive local currency in their usual bank account. They never hold or see a stablecoin. ``` Add one sentence on timing that you can defend. Local instant rails such as Pix and SPEI settle in minutes, while ACH, SEPA, and similar rails take about one to two business days, and compliance review can add time on any rail. ## How do you model the cost of the new flow? Use a formula with variables, then fill it from live quotes. Never from a provider's headline rate. ```text All-in cost per payout = (amount sent - local amount delivered at mid-market value) + funding cost (bank fee to move dollars into USDC, if any) + monthly platform fee / payouts per month + operations minutes per payout x loaded rate Annual saving = (baseline all-in % - proposed all-in %) x annual delivered volume - one-off integration cost ``` Fill it with numbers from quotes collected on the same day, for the same amount, in your top two corridors. Here is an illustrative example with invented round numbers, only to show the arithmetic: | Line (illustrative) | Today: international wire | Proposed: stablecoin to local rail | | --- | --- | --- | | Monthly delivered volume | $500,000 | $500,000 | | All-in cost | 3.0% ($15,000) | 1.0% ($5,000) | | Pre-funded balance abroad | $200,000 at 8% a year ($1,333 a month) | $0 | | Operations hours on exceptions | 40 hours ($2,000) | 10 hours ($500) | | Monthly total | $18,333 | $5,500 | The real proposed column comes from your quotes. If your live quotes don't beat the baseline in a corridor, say so and drop that corridor from the pilot. A business case that admits one losing corridor reads as more credible than one that wins everywhere. ## Which risks should the business case name? Name five, each with a control and an owner. These are the ones finance committees raise most. | Risk | Control | Owner | | --- | --- | --- | | Stablecoin trades below one dollar | Hold stablecoins for minutes, not days; execute only against locked quotes | Treasury | | Provider holds our money and fails | Confirm who holds funds at each step and the written refund rules | Finance | | Payout fails after funds move | Documented refund path and status webhooks into our ledger | Operations | | Corridor rules change | Dated legal sign-off per corridor, reviewed quarterly | Compliance | | Wrong recipient details | Validate bank details before the first payout; re-approve changes | Operations | For the depth behind the first row, see [stablecoin depeg risk for payment companies](/resources/more/stablecoin-depeg-risk-payments). For the second, [what happens if a stablecoin payment provider fails](/resources/more/what-happens-if-a-stablecoin-payment-provider-fails). If something goes wrong in production, the [incident playbook](/resources/more/blockchain-payment-incident-playbook) covers the first hour. ## What does a pilot plan look like? One corridor, a hard cap, a fixed window, and three metrics agreed before the first payout. ```text PILOT PLAN Corridor: [US to Brazil over Pix] Cap: [amount] per month, [amount] per payout Duration: [60 to 90] days Recipients: [existing recipients who agreed to take part] Success metrics: 1. All-in cost per delivered dollar below [X]% 2. Median time from approval to recipient credit below [Y] 3. Payouts needing manual handling below [Z]% Stop rule: Pause if any payout is unaccounted for after [N] hours, or if metric 3 exceeds [Z x 2]% in any week. Review: Weekly 30-minute review; final readout on day [90]. ``` Plan the time before day one too. Provider onboarding, KYB, and integration take weeks, not days. [How long it takes to go live](/resources/more/cross-border-stablecoin-payments-go-live-timeline) breaks that down, and the [30-day evaluation plan](/resources/more/stablecoin-api-30-day-evaluation-plan) covers vendor selection. ## What decision do you ask for? Ask for one specific approval with a date. Vague asks get vague answers. ```text DECISION REQUESTED Approve a [90]-day pilot of stablecoin-based payouts in [corridor], capped at [amount] per month, with [provider] as the payout provider, an integration budget of [hours or amount], and a go or no-go review on [date] based on the three success metrics above. ``` Expect follow-up questions from treasury and audit. [Forecasting FX costs on cross-border payouts](/resources/more/forecast-fx-costs-cross-border-payouts) answers the budget ones, and your auditors will want the quote and payout records for each payment. ## How does BlindPay fit the business case? BlindPay is one provider you can model in sections 3 and 4. It converts USDC or USDT into local currency over Pix, SPEI, ACH, RTP, SEPA, Faster Payments, and SWIFT (POBO/COBO) with UETR tracking and MT103 confirmations, with KYC and KYB in the same API. BlindPay combines a monthly plan with per-transaction fees that vary by rail and network, disclosed in the live quote before execute. Each payout quote locks the rate and fees and expires after 5 minutes ([payout quotes](/docs/payout-quotes)), which gives you the same-minute numbers the cost model needs. A development instance lets engineering test the flow before the pilot starts. ## What to do next Export the last three months of cross-border payouts and fill in the cost baseline table this week. That one table decides whether the rest of the business case is worth writing.