When traditional finance first considered digital assets, the focus was mainly on the volatile
world of cryptocurrencies. Today, the real momentum is in the institutional adoption of payment stablecoins, and with it, the urgent need for a regulatory backbone that can support them
at scale.
Most institutions built their compliance frameworks for a world of settlement windows,
banking hours and asset classes with clear regulatory owners. Digital assets fit none of
those assumptions.
Surekha Nagpal, Senior Director of FinCrime & Risk Operations, TaskUs, says, “The infrastructure question is the harder one. Everyone has worked out they want exposure, the gap is in building the operational backbone to support it safely.”
The regulatory landscape: A tale of two markets
Europe sets the standard
The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) is the first comprehensive framework for digital assets globally, replacing a patchwork of national laws with a single standard across all 27 member states. Its passporting system means a license in one member state confers the right to operate across the entire region. This freedom gives firms building at European scale and advantage.
But implementing MiCA creates two demands traditional banks have not previously faced. The first is integrated custody: MiCA allows for banks to hold stablecoins directly in customer accounts rather than routing through external platforms, requiring real-time settlement and smart-contract capabilities most have not built.
The second is 24/7 operations. Liquidity management over weekends, real-time fraud monitoring and continuous customer support are now baseline requirements.
Surekha explains, “Digital assets don’t observe banking hours and neither can the teams managing the compliance around them. The institutions that haven’t restructured their operations around that reality are already behind.”
The US makes progress
The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, established the first federal framework for payment stablecoins in the US. It draws a clear line between stablecoins and securities or commodities, placing them under banking regulators rather than the SEC or CFTC.
The broader question of which regulator owns which digital asset class remains unsettled, but European institutions with MiCA compliance already in place have a clearer path to cross-border settlement. That creates real pressure on US counterparts to modernize in parallel rather than wait for full certainty.
Three barriers to scaling compliance
1. Making the technology work
When transaction volumes spike, traditional compliance setups break down — alert backlogs grow, onboarding slows and regulatory risk accumulates. Cross-chain monitoring, automated identity verification and alert-triage tooling can reduce the manual burden, but only when the operational structure around them is sound.
“The real challenge is building the operational structure around technology,” Surekha explains. “Without the right data integrations, escalation paths and human oversight, automation creates a false sense of control.”
2. The talent shortage
According to Deloitte’s Q1 2025 North American CFO Signals Survey, 45% of finance chiefs already cite lack of skilled talent as a top workforce challenge — before factoring in the need for blockchain literacy.
Surekha points out, “What we see in practice is a very thin layer of people who genuinely understand both sides: the legacy compliance frameworks and the mechanics of how value moves on-chain. That gap doesn’t close quickly, and it has real consequences for how fast institutions can safely scale.”
3. Compliance versus customer experience
KYC checks, multi-step documentation and account holds are regulatory mandates. But clunky execution drives customers away. The tension is sharper in digital assets, where users have less tolerance for friction and more alternatives.
“Compliance should feel like a protective shield for the user, not a barrier to entry. When someone hits an identity mismatch or an account hold, how that moment is handled determines whether they stay or leave,” she says.
Turning compliance into a capability
Firms that treat compliance as a fixed cost rather than a scalable capability will struggle to keep pace. Three principles tend to differentiate the institutions that scale well.
Build for surge capacity. Compliance workloads spike with volatility and product launches. Static headcount models break at exactly the wrong moment. Whether in-house or through partners, the operating model needs to be flexible.
Invest in cross-trained talent. CAMS certification and blockchain literacy are rarely found in the same person. Building or accessing teams with both is one of the more durable operational advantages available. Most bank support staff are trained on SWIFT and SEPA. They aren’t ready to explain gas fees, transaction hashes or Blockchain latency to a frustrated corporate client.
Design compliance into the product. Account locks and identity mismatches handled poorly are reputational events. Compliance workflows deserve the same design care as the product itself, not a retrofit. Organizations also need to look at the evolved data requirements. It’s important to bridge the data gap between legacy core banking systems and new digital asset sub-ledgers while keeping costs of operation in mind.
“Institutions that get this right are the ones building compliance as a capability,” Surekha says, “something that lets them move faster and into new markets with confidence.”
The convergence of traditional finance and digital assets is already the operating environment. The institutions best placed to lead are those that have treated compliance infrastructure as foundational: built deliberately, staffed properly and designed to hold up under markets that do not close.
