Finance and treasury teams have always had to work around the structural inefficiency that comes from the disconnect between ERPs and banks. On one side sits the ERP, the operational and accounting hub where financial transactions originate. On the other, the bank, the source of truth for actual cash movement. What sits between them? A reconciliation process that’s often manual, slow, error-prone, and in many cases, highly complex.
This has always been seen as a necessary evil, a side effect of legacy infrastructure that’s been built up in a piecemeal way over decades. But what if there is a way to bypass much of the complexity in this process? What if a new form of payment settlement could close that gap? Stablecoins offer a potential solution.
While many still associate them with crypto trading or speculative blockchain projects, stablecoins are emerging as one of the most practical tools for enterprise treasury. Their real-time settlement capabilities, transparency, and programmability position them as a potential game-changer for treasury’s persistent headache over reconciliation.
The Problem with Today’s Reconciliation Process
Reconciliation exists because the two systems at the heart of enterprise finance, the ERP and the bank, speak entirely different languages. Transactions initiated in the ERP may take hours or days to show up in bank accounts, and updated cash data can take just as long to update from the bank to the ERP. Formats differ, metadata gets lost, and timing mismatches create ambiguity.
As Trovata CEO Brett Turner says, “Reconciliation is such a mess. Almost every transaction for a business originates in the ERP, and is then eventually settled in cash at the bank. So you have these two great ledgers with the Grand Canyon running through the middle, which is reconciliation.”
Despite progress in API connectivity and open banking standards, there’s still a fundamental lag between what the ERP says has happened and what the bank confirms.
That time lag, however short, introduces risk:
- Cash forecasting inaccuracies due to unconfirmed settlement timing
- Increased operational workload to match and manually clear transactions
- Compliance exposure when visibility into cash movements is incomplete
- Opportunity cost when capital is trapped in the system without certainty of settlement
Technology can help minimize these issues, particularly when APIs are available, but these tools still rely on traditional banking infrastructure. Finding a solution is key to maximizing finance and treasury efficiency, and Turner says, “Stablecoins could really sit in the middle to become a key part of the digital flow that fixes the reconciliation problem.”
Recommended: How Stablecoins Could Transform Treasury Liquidity Management
Why Stablecoins Could Change the Equation
Stablecoins (digital tokens pegged to fiat currencies like the US dollar) settle in real time on a blockchain. That means when a transaction is initiated, it can be confirmed and cleared within seconds, not days. And because blockchains are shared ledgers, the settlement itself becomes part of a verifiable transaction trail that both sides can see.
This removes the ambiguity between when a payment is initiated and when it clears. More importantly, it removes the need to reconcile.
Instant, Atomic Settlement
The most immediate advantage is the timing. Stablecoin payments settle almost instantly, even across borders or on weekends. That compresses the traditional settlement timeline from days to seconds. Treasury no longer needs to wait for bank statements to confirm whether a payment has landed.
Unified Data Trail
Each stablecoin transaction includes metadata (either on the blockchain directly or via a link to off-chain metadata) that can be linked directly to ERP records. This could include invoice IDs, beneficiary details, payment purpose codes, or other structured tags. Since the payment and its core associated data travel together on-chain, there’s far less room for mismatches.
In essence, the stablecoin transaction itself becomes the reconciliation.
Reduced Friction Between Treasury, Accounting, & IT
With better data integrity and instant settlement, there’s no longer a need for multiple teams to manually chase down discrepancies. Treasury has immediate confirmation of cash movement. Accounting has a cleaner audit trail. IT no longer has to maintain complicated reconciliation logic or RPA scripts.
That means fewer silos, faster reporting, and a more unified financial operating model.
Use Case: Weekend Liquidity Shortfalls
One real-world example illustrates the value clearly. A multinational with over 40 global bank accounts reported regular reserve breaches on Monday mornings due to transaction volume over the weekend while banks are closed. Liquidity outflows over the weekend aren’t visible until Monday, and treasury has to scramble to rebalance accounts.
With stablecoins, that company could automate weekend top-ups using programmable logic:
- A treasury platform like Trovata flags an impending shortfall in a regional account.
- A pre-approved stablecoin transfer is triggered automatically.
- The payment is settled on-chain, converted into local currency by a partner bank or liquidity provider, and credited to the local bank account within hours.
The result is more efficient treasury management and instant reconciliation.
Stablecoins Won’t Eliminate Banks, They’ll Strengthen the Foundation
Critics argue that stablecoins introduce new complexities such as on/off-ramp issues, regulatory oversight, and FX conversion headaches, but these are already being addressed. Banks are beginning to offer tokenized deposit accounts, regulators are providing clearer guidance, and infrastructure providers are emerging to make blockchain settlement interoperable with existing ERP and bank systems.
On the other hand, crypto evangelists talk of a future of decentralized finance where banks become irrelevant. The reality is that stablecoins don’t replace banks. In fact, they enhance their role as settlement engines. In the same way APIs bring banks into the real-time data flow, stablecoins bring them into the real-time settlement layer.
What Treasurers and CFOs Should Do Next
The reconciliation gap is not just a technical problem, it’s a strategic one too. Fixing it has downstream effects on everything from liquidity management to working capital efficiency to audit readiness. And stablecoins are maturing to the point where they can be deployed in tightly controlled, enterprise-grade workflows.
If you’re a treasury or finance leader, here’s how to start:
- Build a stablecoin SWOT team. Assign a cross-functional group from treasury, accounting, and IT to explore potential use cases.
- Identify high-friction flows. Focus on areas with the most reconciliation issues. Cross-border payments, intra-company transfers, and contractor payouts are common candidates.
- Evaluate partners, not just protocols. Focus on infrastructure providers that already have regulatory compliance, liquidity networks, and ERP integration in place.
- Don’t wait for perfection. Like cloud or APIs, stablecoin infrastructure will evolve. The sooner you engage, the more influence you’ll have on how it’s shaped.
Tanner Taddeo, CEO of Stable Sea says, “Every business will have a range of individual potential use cases for stablecoins, and the key is defining where they fit into the organization. That’s why every CFO and finance team should have a stablecoin SWOT team to review where they could drive efficiencies.”
The Stablecoin Solution
Stablecoins won’t fix everything, but they could solve the critical reconciliation issue almost every treasury and finance team has to face. By enabling instant, traceable, and programmable settlement, they bridge the decades-old gap between ERP and bank.
And once that foundation is in place, it opens the door to a world where finance systems truly operate in real time. If you’d like to see how modern technology can truly transform the way your treasury and finance function operates, book a demo with Trovata today.
