Stablecoins — which are drawing fresh interest thanks in part to the Trump administration’s friendlier crypto policies — have historically been used in areas like trading. But what excites Vince Tejada, the newly-minted head of treasury and strategic finance for stablecoin infrastructure provider Bastion, are the opportunities they are poised to open up in the treasury and cross border global payments space.

“If I think about stablecoins, I kind of think of it as another payment rail,” Tejada said in an interview of the digital assets’ potential. “I see a future where stablecoins are bridging the gap between traditional finance and digital assets.”

Earlier this month, Tejada joined Bastion, which offers a stablecoin issuance platform to financial entities. Most recently, he served in various roles for cryptocurrency platform Ripple, including treasury product and strategy, and his past experience also includes serving in key financial roles for JPMorgan Chase and IBM, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Finding financial harmony

The need to straddle the divide between traditional finance and digital assets is not a new challenge for Tejada, who says his career has been spent “really just building and scaling financial infrastructure across both the traditional finance and digital assets world.” That entails everything from building out banking relationships and partnerships, to managing liquidity and global payment operations, he said, so the evolution from a payment strategist to a core operator to an infrastructure builder felt quite natural, he said.

Tajeda is also taking the role in the midst of what he views as a growing convergence between traditional finance and stablecoin, he said. “Traditional financial institutions are starting to recognize the value of stablecoin.”

In recent months, large-scale payment players such as Payoneer and PayPal have dipped their toe into the stablecoin space, with PayPal and Big Four firm Ernst & Young completing a proof-of-concept. Together with crypto platform Coinbase, they’re utilizing stablecoins to pay EY invoices, CFO Dive previously reported. The businesses are also mulling the potential benefits of stablecoins when it comes to cross-border payments, as the assets can be sent quicker than other methods such as wire transfers.

The cost-effectiveness of stablecoins, their ease of transfer and immutability, are a game changer that enables a corporate treasurer to manage the balance sheet globally, Tajeda said.

“How do you manage the balance sheet the most optimized way, [preserve] cash in a place that earns yield and only deploying that cash in areas where it needs to go out?” he said. “I think that’s really the space where stablecoin is going to come into play.”

Having the right infrastructure in place is a critical component of wider adoption, however, which is where he sees companies such as Bastion come into play. Though only a few weeks into his role at Bastion, Tejada has identified several key business priorities: looking at how Bastion can build operation scale, enable strategic partnerships, and take a leading role when it comes to ongoing regulatory developments in the space, he said.

Co-founded by two former Andreessen Horowitz executives, Nassim Eddequiouaq and Riyaz Faizullabhoy, Bastion launched in 2023 with $25 million in seed funding, offering a suite of products aimed at helping companies integrate web3 infrastructure, according to a press release at the time.

“We’re not trying to separate digital assets and financial institutions,” Tajeda said. Rather, the aim is to foster “a cohesive harmony between two worlds.”

Regulatory clarity remains top of mind

Before stablecoins can be put to greater use, however, CFOs and other financial leaders — as well as financial institutions — are still mulling their potential risks, making establishing clear regulatory standards essential.

Under the Trump administration, lawmakers have taken closer looks at stablecoins and their potential uses — and drawbacks — in today’s financial ecosystem. The U.S. Senate recently passed the GENIUS Act, which aims to create a clear regulatory framework for the use of stablecoins and digital assets, CFO Dive previously reported. The bill, which still needs to be passed by the House, looks to create a standard definition for stablecoins and details requirements for their potential issuers, laying the groundwork for wider use.

Bastion has taken several steps to cultivate strong relationships with regulators — establishing a limited purpose trust company charter via the the New York State Department of Financial Services in February, which enables the company to partner with financial entities inside of the state, according to a press release at the time.

In March, the company also appointed Capital One and Morgan Stanley alum Rohan Kohli to the role of chief risk & compliance officer, and Western Union alum Beth Gibson to the role of deputy general counsel, “reinforcing its commitment to regulatory excellence in stablecoin infrastructure,” the company said at the time of the appointments.

Echoing other leaders in the stablecoin space, Tejada stressed the importance of regulatory clarity to the budding ecosystem. One of the biggest challenges he sees in in the space currently is the evolving regulatory environment and the corresponding uncertainty.

“I think that once we get more clarity on the regulatory landscape…technology is going to evolve around this space, and then I think that there’s going to be an explosion of adoption,” he said.