Citi Clients Can Now Accept Stablecoin Payments via Coinbase

Citi and Coinbase have strengthened their partnership to bring stablecoin payments to the bank's institutional clients.

The deal now allows Citi customers to pay in stablecoins without ever holding them, thanks to Coinbase's conversion of tokens into fiat currency.

Coinbase's payment infrastructure has been integrated with Spring by Citi, a merchant payment platform used by Citi's clients. This means that when a customer pays in stablecoins at checkout, the tokens are automatically converted into fiat, and Citi settles the funds as the bank of record.

The partnership also enables Coinbase to use Citi's Virtual Account Wallet to power Coinbase Virtual Accounts. These accounts allow businesses building on Coinbase to accept, hold, and send money like a traditional bank account, with incoming fiat currency automatically converted into stablecoins.

The features are initially available in the US, with plans for further expansion in the coming months. According to Coinbase, over 150 million stablecoin holders worldwide could benefit from this integration.