Citigroup and Coinbase have announced a partnership to develop stablecoin infrastructure for corporate clients. The collaboration aims to simplify the transition between traditional fiat currency and digital assets, allowing businesses to manage payments without maintaining separate banking and crypto systems.
The project consists of two primary components. First, Coinbase Virtual Accounts will integrate with Citi’s banking-as-a-service platform to provide bank-like features for Coinbase customers, enabling the automatic conversion of incoming fiat funds into stablecoins.
Second, the initiative utilizes Citi’s merchant platform, Spring by Citi, integrated with Coinbase infrastructure. This allows enterprise clients to accept stablecoin payments at checkout, with Coinbase handling the conversion back to fiat and Citi managing the final settlement.
This partnership builds upon a previous agreement announced last year to enhance digital asset payment capabilities for institutional clients. Citi is also developing other blockchain-based services, such as Citi Token Services for cross-border payments using tokenized deposits.
Citi is currently collaborating with major financial institutions, including Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America, to explore the issuance of stablecoin products. Additionally, Citi plans to launch a framework for institutional investors to custody traditional assets and bitcoin together.
