Finance
Freelancers mapped stablecoin demand. GBTD can deliver the infrastructure.
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Eran Karaso, Chief Operating Officer at Ruul
There was a lot of fanfare when the UK's six largest banks announced they would be piloting tokenised sterling deposit (GBTD) pilots, testing programmable payments for marketplace escrow, remortgage processes, and on-chain settlement.
But, as with anything with that much red tape, it feels a little bit late. There's a group that's already run this experiment at scale: freelancers.
I work with 120k freelancers via our Merchant of Record structure, and we're nearing a year of offering stablecoin payouts. Nearly one-third of our payments now settle in digital dollars. Graphic designers in Barcelona, web developers in Toronto, consultants in Berlin.
The reasons are straightforward. Settlement happens in minutes, not days, and doesn't stop for weekends or bank holidays. Fees sit well below the 6.5% global remittance average. And crucially, payments don't vanish into correspondent banking limbo for 72 hours while rent is due.
It's genuinely absurd. A freelance copywriter in Manila has access to better cross-border payment infrastructure than most European SMEs using traditional banking. Solopreneurs and digital nomads solved programmable payments years ago because they had no choice. They work across time zones, juggle multiple clients, and can't afford to wait three business days to get paid. So they stopped waiting.
Right now, business owners simulate these flows manually or use crypto rails because traditional banking can't support them. They're professionals forced into alternative rails because legacy infrastructure failed them first.
This matters for GBTD because freelancers have effectively stress-tested what tokenised deposits promise to deliver. The adoption curve is real. McKinsey estimates stablecoin circulation doubled to $250 billion in 18 months, processing $20 billion to $30 billion daily. Still under 1% of global flows, but growing at pace. The technology works. Speed, cost and programmability solve real problems.
They've also identified where the friction remains. Off-ramping to fiat for rent and bills is clunky. Regulatory clarity varies by jurisdiction. Tax reporting is complicated. GBTD has genuine advantage here: commercial bank money with programmable features, backed by institutions people already trust, operating within clear regulatory frameworks. No bridge protocols, no gas fees, no explaining wallet seed phrases to your accountant.
So why isn't stablecoin the de facto choice? User experience. Specifically user interface. Loyal stablecoin users tolerate friction because the alternative is worse. GBTD's opportunity here is offering the same functionality without requiring users to understand tokens, chains, or wallets. To show balances in plain sterling. Offer one-tap movement to traditional accounts. Make it simpler than existing solutions. The moment users need to understand blockchain infrastructure, adoption stalls.
If these six banks can deliver that experience, they're formalising what hundreds of thousands of freelancers have already proven works: tokenised value transfer solves real payment problems when the user experience gets out of the way. The technology is proven, the demand is documented - the only thing that remains is execution.
A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value by pegging it to a reserve asset, such as a currency or commodity, minimizing volatility.
Programmable payments are transactions that can be automated and executed based on predefined conditions, often using smart contracts on blockchain technology.
Off-ramping is the process of converting cryptocurrency back into fiat currency, allowing users to access traditional financial systems.
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