USDCiti and Coinbase Join Forces to Build Stablecoin Payment Infrastructure for Global Institutions
Major U.S. Bank Expands Digital Asset Strategy with 24/7 Settlement Rails Through Coinbase Partnership
TL;DR
- Citi partners with Coinbase to develop institutional-grade stablecoin payment rails.
- The collaboration aims to enable cheaper, faster, 24/7 cross-border settlements.
- Focus initially on fiat pay-ins, pay-outs, and programmable payments for corporate clients.
Citigroup has entered into a strategic partnership with Coinbase to integrate stablecoin payment rails into its institutional services, marking one of the largest pushes by a global bank to adopt blockchain-based settlements. Announced on October 27, 2025, the collaboration targets Citi’s corporate clients who face delays and costs in traditional cross-border transactions. The system is designed to enable faster, cheaper, and programmable fund transfers—operating around the clock instead of relying on conventional banking cut-offs or wire schedules.
Citi’s Head of Payments and Services, Debopama Sen, explained that institutional clients have been pressing for “programmability and conditional payments and other cost and speed and efficiency aspects,” emphasizing that businesses increasingly expect continuous payment processing. The partnership will allow companies to move funds between fiat and crypto ecosystems more efficiently, using stablecoins as the settlement medium. By collaborating with Coinbase, Citi aims to create rails that support fiat pay-ins, pay-outs, and payments orchestration—bridging legacy systems with digital asset infrastructure.
Coinbase’s Global Head of Crypto-as-a-Service, Brian Foster, said the partnership leverages Citi’s institutional reach and Coinbase’s digital-asset expertise to “simplify and expand access to digital asset payments,” describing it as a foundation for next-generation financial infrastructure. The joint effort is expected to streamline corporate liquidity management and improve global treasury operations by introducing programmability and automation through blockchain technology.
This initiative represents a significant evolution in Citi’s digital-asset roadmap. The bank’s previous projects, including its “Token Services” platform for programmable payments and 24/7 liquidity transfers, laid the groundwork for such integration. Citi’s broader infrastructure effort, the Citi Integrated Digital Assets Platform (CIDAP), underpins these developments by supporting tokenized assets, smart-contract settlement, and FX transactions. The new partnership builds directly upon that framework, expanding it to accommodate stablecoin transactions and crypto liquidity via Coinbase’s regulated on- and off-ramps.
The collaboration comes amid a more favorable regulatory environment in the United States following the passage of the so-called “Genius Act” in July 2025, which clarified that banks can issue and transact in stablecoins under defined compliance standards. The legislative shift has opened the door for major financial institutions to explore blockchain settlement layers without regulatory ambiguity. Citi had already been evaluating stablecoin custody and same-day settlement services for its clients earlier this year, signaling a gradual but firm transition toward blockchain-enabled operations.
While neither Citi nor Coinbase disclosed specific rollout dates or transaction volumes for the new stablecoin payment rails, both sides described this phase as an “initial” integration focused on infrastructure readiness rather than immediate commercial deployment. The plan suggests a phased expansion from fiat pay-ins and pay-outs toward full stablecoin-based settlements for institutional clients in multiple jurisdictions.
The alliance positions Citi among the first major U.S. banks to formally implement stablecoin payment capabilities at scale, reinforcing an industry shift where traditional financial giants are moving from passive blockchain observation to active participation. For Coinbase, the move strengthens its role beyond exchange services, highlighting its evolution into a core infrastructure provider for the institutional financial system. The partnership underscores how the next wave of fintech growth may hinge less on speculative trading and more on the quiet transformation of global payment plumbing—bridging the speed of crypto with the reliability of legacy banking.
This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.
