Payments industry shifts to hybrid model

Report finds that programmable money—including stablecoins and tokenised deposits—has graduated from pilot phases to supporting real-world payment flows

As settlement windows tighten and global stablecoin regulations diverge, the payments industry is moving away from a binary choice between old and new systems. A new report from Clear Junction, the global provider of cross-border payments infrastructure, argues that the next competitive advantage lies in mastering “hybrid rails.”

The whitepaper, titled ‘Value in Transition: Navigating the Evolution of Money, Payments and Digital Finance’, suggests that the most successful financial institutions will be those capable of operating across traditional bank networks, permissioned platforms, and public programmable networks simultaneously—all while maintaining consistent controls and audit discipline.

The report finds that programmable money—including stablecoins and tokenised deposits—has graduated from pilot phases to supporting real-world payment flows. These include weekend marketplace payouts, cross-border remittances, and SME settlements in access-constrained markets.

Rather than displacing established systems like SWIFT, programmable rails are beginning to complement them.

We are living through value in transition – not one rail replacing another, but several operating side by side, said Teresa Cameron, group CEO at Clear Junction. The question for regulated institutions is no longer whether to support ‘old’ or ‘new’ rails, but how to use all of them together, safely and to their advantage.

The push towards hybrid models is driven by tangible operational pressures. Institutions face shrinking settlement windows and long-standing friction in correspondent banking chains that trap liquidity across time zones. Programmable money offers a solution by reducing pre-funding requirements and speeding up settlement.

However, the report warns that regulatory divergence—with countries taking different approaches to stablecoin oversight—requires firms to “design for divergence.” This means ensuring that compliance controls and audit trails travel consistently across jurisdictions and rail types.