Coinbase brings bank-grade fiat and stablecoin payments to businesses, in collaboration with Citi

Businesses that want to move between fiat and stablecoins face a practical problem: doing it at scale usually means stitching together separate banking and digital asset systems, and carrying the operational and regulatory weight of both. Coinbase is removing that work. By pairing its payments infrastructure with Citi’s regulated banking rails, businesses building on Coinbase get a single, direct path between traditional finance and digital assets, without standing up either stack themselves.

Coinbase chose Citi’s Virtual Account Wallet, part of Citi’s Banking-as-a-Service offering, to power Coinbase Virtual Accounts. Coinbase Virtual Accounts give payments customers bank-account-like functionality, the ability to accept, hold, and pay funds, with incoming fiat automatically converted into stablecoins. Underneath, Citi provides the regulated banking infrastructure that lets these accounts operate at scale and connect cleanly to the global financial system.

The collaboration also extends Coinbase’s payments infrastructure to Spring by Citi, Citi’s payment acceptance platform for merchant acquiring, gateway technology, and settlement. Citi’s institutional clients can now accept stablecoin payments at checkout without holding or managing stablecoins directly. Coinbase’s infrastructure automatically converts the digital currency into fiat, and Citi settles the funds as the bank of record. It runs on Coinbase’s existing payments engine, now reaching enterprise merchants through one of the world’s largest banks and serving a market of more than 150 million stablecoin holders worldwide.

For clients building on Coinbase, these capabilities open concrete new ground:

Coinbase provides payments infrastructure connecting fiat and digital assets, while Citi brings its regulated banking capabilities and global reach across more than 180 countries and jurisdictions. Together, the companies give businesses a direct route between traditional finance and digital assets. The initiatives will launch first in the United States, with additional capabilities to follow in the coming months.

Alec Lovett, Head of Infrastructure Product, Coinbase:
"Fintechs building on Coinbase have always needed a fast, compliant bridge between fiat and stablecoins, and Citi gives us that at scale. By powering our Virtual Accounts with Citi's regulated banking infrastructure, we're giving businesses bank-account-like functionality with the speed of stablecoins underneath it, and pairing that with stablecoin acceptance through Spring by Citi means our shared customers can move between fiat and digital assets without ever having to think about which one they're touching."

Brett Tejpaul, Head of Coinbase Institutional:
"Citi is exactly the kind of regulated banking partner the digital asset economy needs to move from experimentation to everyday commerce. This collaboration gives Coinbase customers bank-grade fiat infrastructure on one side and Citi's institutional clients easy, low-friction stablecoin acceptance on the other, without either side needing to build or manage a system they don't need."

“Our clients operate in an increasingly fast-paced and complex global economy, and we’re focused on delivering the solutions they need. Our goal is to build the next generation of payments infrastructure – one that is seamless, interoperable, and operates across both traditional and digital payments instruments and networks. This is about enabling the future of commerce, today.” Debopama Sen, Head of Payments, Services, Citi

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