Stablecoin cross-border payments were priced below the interbank foreign exchange rate in every month of the second quarter, according to Borderless.xyz's Q2 2026 Benchmark, a data set drawn from 260 payment corridors across 108 countries.
The benchmark's Parity Gap, the difference between stablecoin delivery pricing and the interbank rate that banks trade at with each other and customers never receive, sat at a median of negative 3.2 basis points for the quarter.
It also crossed below zero in February and drifted further under in nearly every month since, reaching negative 5.9 bps in June, its deepest level of the year.
A negative gap means the full delivered price landed below the interbank mid, a result the report calls rare for any cross-border delivery mechanism. Because rates from some providers carry embedded fees that cannot be separated from the exchange rate, the figure reflects all-in client pricing rather than isolated FX execution.
Delivery has commoditized
