The GENIUS Act, officially the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, passed in July 2025 and cleared a major regulatory hurdle for banks and credit unions exploring digital assets. Prior to passage, dozens of financial institutions halted digital asset engagement over uncertainty about permissible activities.
The challenge has shifted from regulatory compliance to core infrastructure development. Stablecoins, tokenization initiatives, and blockchain-based transactions represent the most significant infrastructure platform shift for banking since the internet's advent.
Most banks find replacing legacy core systems impractical. Instead, they are deploying "side cores"—cloud-native processing layers that connect existing systems with digital asset services. Both core challengers and established legacy providers are adopting this approach.
A digital asset side core functions as an interoperable layer connecting a bank's legacy systems with services required to interact with stablecoins, tokens, and blockchains. It translates traditional banking functions—ledgering, orchestration, controls, compliance, reporting, and reconciliation—for new asset types.
This strategy allows institutions to modernize at their operational edges without rebuilding their entire infrastructure. Banks gain capacity for stablecoin transfers and support additional digital asset use cases: tokenized deposits, digital asset-based lending, and rewards programs.
Banks typically begin by engaging directly with infrastructure providers—digital asset custodians or stablecoin issuers—but quickly discover the extensive scope of services required. A comprehensive side-core solution aggregates these services: custody, blockchain transaction fees ("gas" costs), core system integration, accounting, stablecoin issuer integration, digital asset ledgering, compliance frameworks, exchange integration, blockchain network infrastructure, liquidity management, orchestration, and permissioning.
Most financial institutions lack internal structure to manage this broad scope of digital asset engagement without dedicated infrastructure.
Bill Winters, group chief executive of Standard Chartered, said, "Our job is to provide access to what our customers find important." Standard Chartered's experience in high-growth trade corridors in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East shows adoption accelerates when technology combines with trust, regulatory clarity, and economic utility.
