Citi Embeds Coinbase Inside Its Corporate Payments Platform

Citi and Coinbase have strengthened their partnership, enabling corporate clients to accept stablecoins without holding them. Citi's Spring platform will now allow merchants to receive stablecoin payments directly from customers, with Coinbase handling token conversion and settlement. The bank settles the funds, while Coinbase moves the tokens.

The partnership allows merchants to tap into a vast market of over 150 million stablecoin holders worldwide, without needing to handle digital assets themselves. Citi absorbs the operational risk associated with crypto transactions, presenting it as ordinary banking. This is not a pilot project but live infrastructure for real money transactions.

The scope of the partnership has expanded since its initial announcement in October 2025. The collaboration initially focused on fiat payments and basic orchestration between Citi and Coinbase. Now, Citi's virtual account product automatically converts incoming fiat into stablecoins, and its merchant acceptance tool allows corporate clients to accept stablecoin payments.

The total stablecoin market value is around $308 billion as of mid-August 2026. Real-world stablecoin payment volume has doubled last year to approximately $400 billion, with an estimated 60% coming from business-to-business transactions. McKinsey projects B2B stablecoin payments could top $1 trillion by 2030.