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Citi and Coinbase Expand Stablecoin Payments Partnership for Businesses
New integration connects corporate bank accounts, stablecoin conversion and merchant settlement
TL;DR
- Citi and Coinbase expanded their partnership to connect traditional banking infrastructure with stablecoin payments for businesses.
- Coinbase will use Citi’s Virtual Account Wallet and add its payment infrastructure to Spring by Citi.
- Merchants can accept stablecoin payments without directly holding or managing the digital assets.
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Citigroup and Coinbase expanded their digital-asset partnership to give businesses a direct link between traditional banking systems and stablecoin payments, with the companies extending the relationship into corporate accounts, merchant acceptance and fiat-to-stablecoin conversion. The expanded arrangement was reported on September 28, 2026, and will initially launch in the United States.
Coinbase will use Citi’s Virtual Account Wallet to power Coinbase Virtual Accounts, which provide customers with bank-account-like functionality for accepting, holding and sending funds. Incoming fiat sent into those accounts will be automatically converted into stablecoins.
Citi will provide the regulated banking infrastructure behind the accounts through its Banking-as-a-Service offering. The setup is designed to let businesses handle fiat and stablecoin transactions through connected infrastructure instead of building separate banking and digital-asset systems.
Coinbase Payments Connect to Spring by Citi
The partnership will also bring Coinbase’s payments infrastructure to Spring by Citi, the bank’s payment-acceptance platform. Citi institutional clients will be able to receive stablecoin payments from customers without directly holding or managing the digital assets themselves.
Coinbase will handle the stablecoin portion of each transaction and automatically convert the payment into fiat currency. Citi will then settle the funds to merchants while acting as the bank of record.
“Citi’s institutional clients can now accept stablecoin payments at checkout without holding or managing stablecoins directly,” the announcement said.
Additional capabilities are expected in the coming months as Citi and Coinbase extend an existing digital-asset relationship that began with a broader institutional payments collaboration announced in October 2025. That earlier cooperation focused on enabling institutional users to move between traditional fiat currencies and digital assets while examining additional methods for fiat-to-stablecoin conversion.
The latest expansion shifts that relationship further into business payment acceptance. Businesses using Coinbase Virtual Accounts can receive conventional money that is converted into stablecoins, while merchants using Spring by Citi can receive stablecoin payments that Coinbase converts into fiat before Citi completes settlement.
Citi Builds Out Custody and Tokenization Services
Citi has organized its broader digital-asset strategy around four areas: expanding Citi Token Services, improving interoperability between financial and digital-asset systems, developing crypto custody and tokenization services, and providing banking infrastructure to virtual-asset service providers.
The bank has positioned that strategy around connecting fiat currencies, stablecoins and other tokenized assets through regulated banking infrastructure.
Citi added another part of that effort in August 2026 when it unveiled Custody+, a custody platform intended to operate alongside its conventional custody services. Citi said it planned to support custody of native digital assets before the end of 2026, beginning with Bitcoin.
The bank also entered tokenized securities in June 2026 with Digital Depositary Receipts representing shares in private companies. The instruments use regulated blockchain infrastructure operated by SIX, with Citi serving as issuer and custodian.
Citi has also become the first U.S. bank to process live native transactions on Swift’s blockchain-based ledger, adding another blockchain-based service to its institutional infrastructure push.
Banks Broaden Stablecoin Initiatives
The Citi-Coinbase expansion comes as other banking and payments initiatives extend stablecoin services across U.S. financial institutions.
Earlier in September 2026, Coinbase partnered with payments provider Moov to bring stablecoin payment services to more than 1,000 U.S. community banks and credit unions.
A separate consortium of 21 major global financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi and Deutsche Bank, has announced plans to launch a dollar-denominated stablecoin venture in the first half of 2027.
U.S. Bancorp has also announced plans to introduce a dollar-pegged stablecoin.
Citi’s arrangement with Coinbase follows a different model. Rather than requiring merchants to manage stablecoins themselves, Coinbase handles the digital-asset processing and conversion layer while Citi provides regulated accounts, settlement and banking services.
The structure also enables two-way movement between fiat and stablecoins. Fiat entering Coinbase Virtual Accounts can be converted into stablecoins, while stablecoin payments received through Spring by Citi can be converted into fiat before merchants receive settlement from Citi.
FAQ
What does Citi provide in the partnership?
Citi provides regulated banking infrastructure, account services and merchant settlement.
What does Coinbase handle?
Coinbase manages stablecoin processing and converts payments between fiat and stablecoins.
How do Coinbase Virtual Accounts work?
They let customers accept, hold and send funds while incoming fiat is converted into stablecoins.
How can Citi clients accept stablecoin payments?
Spring by Citi clients can receive them without directly holding or managing the stablecoins.
This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.
