A Smart-Contract-Driven Future: Corporate Strategy in the Era of Zero-Touch Accounting

Key to zero-touch accounting are two forms of digital money that work on the blockchain. Common to both is that they can be transferred and settled on the blockchain. Where they differ is their issuers and the networks on which they are used. Tokenized deposits are a digital representation of bank deposits that preserves their underlying legal nature. Because the issuers are banks and they circulate on permission-based networks operated by banks, they have high synergy with internal controls and ERP linking. Stablecoins, meanwhile, are digital money designed to mirror the value of a fiat currency. Their issuers are mainly private companies compliant with regulations. Stablecoins are distributed on public networks open to the public, so the range of parties they can connect to is broad. Advantages common to both are lower costs compared to traditional payments, greater speed, expanded range of deliverable destinations and transparency of transactions. Using smart contracts also enables the automation of conditional processing such as “immediate payment upon completion of acceptance,” “automatic transfer upon arrival of deadline day,” and “automatic price reduction upon delay.” This changes money into “data that works based on conditions.” This change of mindset is at the core of zero-touch accounting (see Figure 1).

In addition to the mainstay of cross-border payments, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift), there are moves afoot among central banks and major banks to build payments platforms predicated on tokenized deposits/stablecoins. The decisive action behind these developments was the federal stablecoins act passed in the USA in July 2025 (the GENIUS Act: “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act”). This act indicated a framework for stablecoin reserve assets, disclosure and oversight requirements, vastly reducing the systemic uncertainties around stablecoins. Clarification of systems in key currency nations can be seen as a strong driver of moves by banks, payment operators and major companies to “embark on implementation.” As of time of writing in September 2025, Swift has also put forward its own vision for a blockchain payment network. With participation from 16 countries and over 30 major banks, it has taken as its initial benchmark handling real-time payments 24-hours a day, 365 days a year. Such moves are not limited to the global stage, but also extend to domestic instant payments, regional or industry consortium-backed closed environments and corporate group closed networks.
In a previous Insight, “A Seismic Shift in Cross-Border Payments: Impacts on Relationships Between Companies and Banks,” we looked in detail at the transformation of existing infrastructure, so we encourage you to take a look to find out more.

The takeaways from these developments are clear. Going forward, as standards for payment rails move on chain (on the blockchain), platforms will go from being singular to multilinear. As adoption of blockchain payments advances, the “places where smart contracts run” will expand dramatically from global networks only to include local and closed networks.
(Reference)Swift introduces blockchain-based ledger | Swift

After digital money spreads widely throughout society and the automation value of smart contracts is recognized, the next thing to come into view will be a world where accounting operations are almost fully automated, with near-zero human touch. While traditional BPO and RPA have been effective for rote internal work, exceptional processing, verification and internal controls remained dependent on manual work. By contrast, smart contracts are able to convert transaction conditions to code and automatically execute transactions spanning different companies. By involving business partners and banks, and using smart contracts to handle everything up to receipt and acceptance, payments, deposits and storage of audit trails, companies can convert non-value added work such as manual data entry, double checking and manual reconciliation to zero-touch processes. As a result, they can manage to, at once, condense closing procedures, limit accounting errors and improve internal controls.

Below, we go over some post-automation accounting operations (payments and deposits) as well as the specific processing steps involved.

Traditional payments operations involve receiving an invoice (paper or electronic) after completion of acceptance, then sending the necessary documents to accounting. Accounting would then issue and sum a payment slip after performing three-way matching and approving the invoice. Despite this managing to avoid neither human work nor waiting times, a risk of accounting errors would nevertheless remain. With smart contracts, however, it is possible to encode, in advance, rules such as “instantaneous payment upon completion of acceptance.” Once an ERP confirms completion of acceptance, it notifies an on-chain blockchain via API, which then automatically performs a payment as soon as it has passed through conditional judgments, without the intervention of any humans. Smart contracts can also embed logic in line with a company’s business customs, for example, automatically lowering payment amounts when delays to acceptance occur. Automatic journalizing of transactions can also be registered to ERPs with the completion of payments as a trigger. Because transaction records are stored on the blockchain in forms that are difficult to forge, this process thus automates everything up to the storage of audit trails (see Figure 4).

We can also chart a zero-touch future for deposit operations. Traditionally, companies would await deposits after issuing invoices, then matching and reconcile bank statements and ERPs manually. If delays or defects occurred, the company would have to send reminders, calculate delay fees and adjust differences, inflating the work and lead times involved. With smart contracts, however, invoices can be issued as invoice tokens, and amounts, deadlines, discount/delay conditions, allowances and deposit conditions for receivers and other parties can be embedded on chain. Deposits are only received if they pass through token decisions, and transfers that do not match those conditions are automatically held or rejected. The result of this is that deposits are confirmed when conditions are met, accounts receivable are automatically reconciled and journal entry registration is completed without manual intervention. Likewise, on the payer side, the transaction status transitions are recorded on the blockchain in forms that are difficult to forge, serving as an audit trail as is. This changes deposit operations from “waiting” and “verifying” work to a mechanism that “flows automatically when conditions are arranged.” People only need to intervene in exceptional circumstances and day-to-day deposit reconciliation becomes unnecessary (see Figure 5).

This Insight described growing blockchain payment networks and the automatic execution of the smart contracts that run on them. It also pointed the way towards a vision for next-generation accounting that companies should aspire to, based on the insights ABeam Consulting has gained from supporting financial institutions and global companies in this area.
The advantages of smart contracts compared to traditional methods are clear. They extend the borders of automation from inside companies to outside companies (to banks and business partners), move in the direction of 24-hour 365-day-a-year execution, and minimize human error through rule-based automation. This results in the optimization of the flow of capital and allows companies to redistribute accounting resources to higher value-added work. Put another way, overlooking these trends could lead companies to trail behind their competition for years to come. Streamlining the back office has now gone from being a matter of simple cost cutting to being a core business challenge affecting growth and capital efficiency. Now is the time for companies to define their visions for their accounting departments and set out on implementing them.

Selecting which blockchain payment networks to connect to is also part of strategy. For example, the scope of automation that may be achievable could differ between the sorts of large-scale, highly public chains envisaged by Swift and the small-scale chains backed by regional or industry consortiums. The former have limited functionality but greater reach due to coordinating a wide range of interests. The latter can more readily adopt highly agile compositions in line with participant requirements. At time of writing, the extent to which programmable mechanisms can be implemented on large-scale chains is to be determined. The requirements demanded by zero-touch accounting, meanwhile, are more readily incorporated on the small-scale chains offered by commercial banks or stablecoin issuers. Deciding policy regarding what to automate using which chains in light of the company’s vision will be the deciding factor in future competition.

ABeam Consulting has a wealth of experience in cross-border fund management and DX support for domestic and international financial institutions and operating companies, having led implementation projects from both the bank and company perspectives. We also boast deep relationships with ERP vendors, which are key to connecting to blockchains, and an extensive record of achievement in partnerships with such companies. ABeam offers a platform providing end-to-end, side-by-side support from scope design to deploying to production.
If you are thinking about connecting to blockchain payment networks or implementing zero-touch accounting, please feel free to get in touch with us for a consultation.