At Sibos Frankfurt 2025, Stephen Richardson, chief strategy officer and head of banking at Fireblocks, outlined how the company is lowering the barriers for banks, payments companies and fintechs to adopt blockchain. He described Fireblocks’ approach as making it simple to issue and move tokenised deposits and stablecoins, connect to more than 120 blockchains, and manage the practical risks around custody, compliance and user experience that have traditionally slowed institutional adoption.

Digital assets took center stage at this year’s conference, propelled by Swift’s disclosure of a shared digital ledger initiative involving 30 member institutions. Against that backdrop, Richardson framed Fireblocks as a digital asset infrastructure provider delivering what he called the “core banking layer for digital assets.” The goal is to let financial institutions plug into blockchain-native capabilities without staffing entire new departments or building bespoke, risk-heavy systems from scratch.

A major thrust of Fireblocks’ work is enabling banks to move money on-chain for real business outcomes. The company is concentrating on payments use cases end-to-end, with particular emphasis on tokenised deposits and stablecoins for cross-border settlement and treasury operations. While global cash-clearing institutions like JP Morgan and Citibank have already experimented with or deployed tokenised deposits internally, Richardson observed that most banks are still clarifying their operating model, risk framework and technology stack. In that gap, they are looking for trusted partners to help them move from pilots to production.

According to Richardson, Fireblocks’ secure wallet and orchestration stack lets banks test and scale on-chain transfers and atomic settlement while keeping within regulatory guardrails. Institutions can initiate and approve transactions, enforce policy controls, manage operational roles, and integrate with existing systems without rewriting their core architecture. This ability to experiment in a controlled, auditable environment is critical as banks refine their strategies.

On the product side, Fireblocks sees corporate and transactional banking as the most immediate, scalable domain for stablecoins. In one model, a bank can convert local fiat into a stablecoin, transfer that value quickly and transparently, and rely on a partner bank for last-mile FX and payouts in the destination market. Tokenised deposits offer a complementary path: they are claims on regulated bank money with the added benefits of programmability and on-chain settlement. Fireblocks provides the wallet infrastructure and orchestration to support both approaches, allowing banks to choose the instrument that best fits their regulatory posture and client needs.

Richardson stressed that programmability will be the catalyst for widespread adoption. Once conditional logic can be attached to payments—say, releasing funds only on delivery confirmation, automating invoice reconciliation, or enabling milestone-based disbursements—new workflows become possible that go beyond moving value from point A to point B. Smart, conditional payments can compress settlement cycles, reduce manual operations, and improve transparency for all parties in a transaction.

He also addressed the operational and compliance obstacles that banks face. Interacting with external wallets introduces KYC and AML risks; unfamiliar technology and new key management models create operational risk; and few institutions have deep custodial experience with digital assets. Fireblocks’ proposition is to provide a turnkey platform with secure wallet infrastructure, policy enforcement and compliance tooling, reframing “custody” as “secure access” to blockchains under a bank’s control. This framing aligns with how institutions think about privileged access and control in traditional systems, making it easier to adopt and govern.

These concerns take on added urgency as regulators sharpen their focus on critical service providers and third-party risk. Banks increasingly want partners that can demonstrate robust security, rigorous operational controls, and audit-ready processes. Richardson positioned Fireblocks’ architecture and certifications as a response to that demand, helping institutions meet internal and external requirements while moving quickly.

Interoperability was another recurring theme. Fireblocks supports more than 120 blockchains and integrates with networks such as the Circle Payment Network (CPN), while also operating the Fireblocks Payments Network to streamline messaging and API connectivity. Richardson argued that open ecosystems—akin to those that helped USDC and USDT achieve network effects—are vital for innovation. As industry players evaluate new shared ledger projects, including Swift’s, he framed the central question as, “How open will they be?” Open models encourage competition, experimentation and cross-network liquidity; closed designs risk duplicative silos and fragmented user experiences.

User experience, Richardson said, is the next competitive frontier. For blockchain-based payments to scale, banks must deliver an experience that feels as familiar as today’s web and mobile interfaces. Corporate treasurers should see seamless connectivity into their ERP and TMS platforms, with real-time status, reconciliation and controls. Retail users should not need to distinguish whether they are using fiat or a digital asset—what matters is that funds move instantly, transparently and with minimal friction.

Taken together, Richardson’s remarks position Fireblocks as the connective tissue between traditional finance and blockchain rails. By offering secure wallets, tokenisation tools and payments orchestration across multiple chains, the company aims to reduce operational and compliance complexity while giving institutions the flexibility to use both tokenised deposits and stablecoins. That breadth lets banks explore different instruments and networks without locking themselves into a single technology path.

Looking ahead, Richardson emphasized a future in which money—regardless of whether it is physical, digital, tokenised or a stablecoin—moves across networks without end users noticing a difference. Banks and fintechs, in his view, will win by adopting open, interoperable infrastructure that enables speed, transparency and programmability