Citi and Coinbase Bridge Stablecoins with Traditional Settlement

Citi and Coinbase have partnered to bring stablecoin payments into US businesses' checkout flows. The new service allows merchants to accept stablecoins without holding them directly, with automatic conversion to fiat and settlement through Citi.

According to the companies, the partnership has two parts: Coinbase Virtual Accounts can accept incoming fiat and convert it into stablecoins, while institutional clients can accept digital-asset payments through Spring by Citi. However, neither company has revealed which stablecoins will be used or when the full service will be available.

Brett Tejpaul, Coinbase's institutional head, stated that the partnership aims to make cross-border payments faster and cheaper. Citi's expansion of its token-services blockchain to Japan and the UAE adds to its growing digital-money work beyond this checkout product.