Visa survey: 46 percent of Asia Pacific consumers expect to use stablecoins within five years, with Vietnam and Thailand near the top

Stablecoins have reached the mainstream in Asia Pacific in name, if not yet in understanding. A new Visa Consumer 360 study of 14,250 consumers aged 18 to 65 across 14 markets found that 46 percent are likely to use stablecoins within the next five years, and 16 percent have already used them in the past 12 months. Two-thirds of respondents, 66 percent, said they are aware of stablecoins. Only 6 percent could accurately describe how they work.

That gap between awareness and understanding is the most important finding in the research, which was fielded in June and July 2026 and reported by Fintech News Singapore. It suggests that stablecoins are being discovered through hype, headlines and crypto trading rather than through everyday payments, and that the brands which explain them clearly could shape how the region adopts them.

The headline numbers

• 46 percent of consumers are likely to use stablecoins within five years.
• 16 percent have used stablecoins in the past 12 months.
• 49 percent expect stablecoins could become a common way to send money abroad within five years.
• 66 percent are aware of stablecoins, but only 6 percent accurately understand how they work.
• Among aware consumers, 49 percent think stablecoins can only be used to trade other cryptocurrencies, and 41 percent think they always increase in value.

The misconceptions are striking. A stablecoin is designed to hold a steady value, usually one US dollar, backed by reserves such as cash and short-dated government bonds. The belief that stablecoins always rise in value is the opposite of their purpose, and the belief that they only serve crypto trading ignores the payments, remittance and treasury uses that issuers and networks are building.

Among consumers who know about stablecoins but have not used them, 38 percent cite fraud or scam concerns and 36 percent cite a lack of understanding. Those two barriers are linked. People who do not understand a product find it harder to tell a legitimate offer from a scam.

The 16 percent usage figure deserves context. It covers the past 12 months and does not distinguish between someone who bought a stablecoin once on an exchange and someone who uses one weekly for payments. Even so, it suggests that tens of millions of people across the region have already touched a stablecoin, most likely through crypto trading platforms rather than through banks or payment apps.

Thailand and Vietnam stand out

The market-level figures put Southeast Asia near the top of the region. Thailand ranked third for awareness at 77 percent, behind only Hong Kong at 84 percent and India at 80 percent. On intent to use stablecoins within five years, Vietnam and India led at 67 percent each.

Those results fit what is happening on the ground. Thailand has an active, licensed crypto market and has been testing a baht-linked token, as we covered in our report on the Thai baht stablecoin pilot. Vietnam has one of the world's most active retail crypto user bases and is building a licensing framework for domestic exchanges.

The research did not publish market-level figures for Singapore or for other Southeast Asian countries. That leaves gaps, particularly for Indonesia and the Philippines, two of the largest remittance and digital wallet markets in the region.

Two-thirds have heard of stablecoins. Six percent understand them. Adoption in Asia is now an education problem, not an awareness one.

Who consumers trust to issue stablecoins

The survey asked which institutions consumers would trust most to issue or back stablecoins. Government or central bank-linked entities ranked highest at 27 percent, followed closely by banks and regulated financial institutions at 26 percent. Crypto-native firms ranked lower.

That ordering has commercial implications. It suggests that bank-issued tokens, regulated stablecoins and products distributed by established payment brands will find a more receptive audience among mainstream consumers than tokens marketed by crypto exchanges alone. It also helps explain why banks such as OCBC and Standard Chartered, and networks such as Visa, are investing in tokenized deposits, custody and stablecoin settlement.

Nischint Sanghavi, Visa's head of digital currencies for Asia Pacific, said Visa is seeing a meaningful shift in how consumers across the region think about stablecoins, and that its role is to connect the technology with secure payment experiences consumers already use.

That finding sits uneasily with the current market structure. The largest dollar stablecoins today are issued by private companies, not banks or governments, and most retail users reach them through exchanges. If mainstream consumers prefer bank and government-linked issuers, the market leaders of the next phase may look very different from those of the last.

The use cases consumers want

Respondents linked stablecoins to everyday spending, online purchases, travel spending, overseas shopping, and above all cross-border transfers and remittances. That last use case is where stablecoins have the clearest advantage over existing options in Asia, where migrant workers send billions home each year and often pay high fees and wait days for funds to arrive.

The infrastructure is moving in that direction. In the same week as the survey, Hong Kong-based stablecoin payment platform RedotPay, which has more than nine million users, announced a partnership with Nium to expand its off-ramp coverage, converting stablecoins into local currencies across Nium's network of 100 currencies and 190 countries. Coinbase also announced that USDC will be the default dollar stablecoin in Samsung Wallet in the United States.

Visa's own Stablecoin Platform, unveiled in July 2026 for a select group of beta clients, is designed to let financial institutions issue, move and manage stablecoins. The company says it is working with banks, regulated institutions and payment partners to link stablecoins with familiar payment methods such as cards.

Remittance corridors into Southeast Asia are among the largest in the world, from the Middle East, East Asia and North America into the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia. Even small reductions in cost and settlement time on those flows add up to large savings for families, which is why remittance companies, banks and crypto firms are all competing to offer stablecoin-based transfers.

Singapore's stablecoin law is about to tighten

Regulation will shape how quickly that demand turns into use. The Monetary Authority of Singapore is consulting on amendments to the Payment Services Act that would give its stablecoin framework legal force. Issuers that meet MAS requirements would be able to label their tokens as MAS-regulated stablecoins. Feedback on the consultation is due by 16 October 2026.

A legally backed label matters for exactly the trust problem the Visa survey identified. Consumers who worry about scams and do not understand how stablecoins work are more likely to use a token that carries a clear regulatory status and a recognisable issuer. We explained the earlier stages of this framework in our report on Singapore's stablecoin law.

Other regulators in the region are watching. Indonesia's OJK has said stablecoins will be treated as transactional instruments but not payment tools, while Thailand's central bank has taken a cautious line on dollar stablecoins used to move grey money. The patchwork means a stablecoin product that works in Singapore may not be allowed in Jakarta or Bangkok.

What brands should take from the research

For payment companies, banks and exchanges, the survey is a messaging brief. Awareness is high, so the job is no longer to tell people stablecoins exist. The job is to explain, simply and repeatedly, what a stablecoin is, what it is not, how it is backed and how a customer gets their money back out.

For marketers, the misconceptions are a warning. Positioning stablecoins as an investment that grows, or blurring them with volatile crypto assets, would deepen exactly the confusion that holds adoption back and could attract regulatory scrutiny. Clear, factual explanation is both the ethical choice and the commercially effective one.

For regulators, the data supports frameworks that give consumers a simple trust signal. A recognisable label, backed by law, would help the 94 percent who do not yet understand stablecoins to tell regulated products from risky ones.

Visa's research captures Asia Pacific at an inflection point. Stablecoins are widely known, increasingly used, and expected by many to become a normal way to send money abroad. But the understanding gap is huge, and it feeds the scam fears that keep people away. The next phase of adoption in Thailand, Vietnam and across the region will belong to the regulated issuers, banks and payment brands that can explain stablecoins in plain language and back that explanation with a legal guarantee.