Citi and Coinbase expand payment collaboration

Citi and Coinbase are expanding their collaboration to connect digital and fiat payments for corporations and consumers. The partnership aims to solve operational complexity and risk for businesses connecting traditional banking services with blockchain infrastructure.

This partnership introduces two main initiatives: Coinbase Virtual Accounts and Merchant Stablecoin Acceptance. Coinbase chose Citi’s Virtual Account Wallet to support Coinbase Virtual Accounts, giving users bank-account-like features with automatic fiat-to-stablecoin swaps.

Citi’s Virtual Account Wallet provides the necessary regulated banking infrastructure to link digital asset platforms with the global financial system. This allows for scalable on-ramps and off-ramps connecting traditional and digital finance.

Spring by Citi allows institutional clients to accept stablecoin payments at the point of sale, powered by Coinbase Payments. The system automatically converts payments to fiat, and Citi settles them as the bank of record. This lets merchants serve over 150 million stablecoin holders globally without handling, securing, or managing the digital assets themselves.

Shahmir Khaliq, Citi’s Head of Services, says this partnership with Coinbase is a step in their Services strategy to give clients options. Citi offers regulated, bank-grade solutions that clear major obstacles for clients seeking to enter the digital economy.

Ashish Bajaj, Head of Services for North America at Citi, adds that their goal is to build the next generation of payments infrastructure that operates across both traditional and digital payments instruments and networks. This is about enabling the future of commerce, today.

Citi’s clients can now provide innovative new solutions that offer choice and convenience to their users. Together, these firms bring the reliability and reputation of trusted partners from both traditional finance and the digital asset sector.

As one of the world’s largest banks, moving approximately $6 trillion daily, Citi is actively leveraging tokenization and blockchain technology to build the next generation of payments solutions. This includes digital commerce solutions Spring by Citi and BaaS, as well as the newly integrated 24/7 USD Clearing and Citi Token Services solution.

Citi also banks 90% of the top eCommerce companies and 15 of the world’s 20 largest FinTechs. The initiatives, launching first in the United States, are part of Citi’s broader strategy to develop end-to-end payments solutions for the digital economy.

Alec Lovett, Head of Infrastructure Product at Coinbase, notes that clients building on Coinbase have always needed a fast, compliant bridge between fiat and stablecoins, and Citi gives them that at scale. By powering their Virtual Accounts with Citi’s regulated banking infrastructure, they’re giving businesses bank-account-like functionality with the speed of stablecoins underneath it.

Brett Tejpaul, Head of Coinbase Institutional, adds that 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.