Citi, Coinbase Expand Stablecoin Payment Pipeline — SkimNews
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- Citi institutional clients can now accept stablecoin payments through Spring by Citi, with Coinbase converting the tokens into fiat and Citi settling the funds as bank of record.
- Coinbase is using Citi's Virtual Account Wallet to power Coinbase Virtual Accounts, which let businesses accept, hold, and send money with incoming fiat automatically converted into stablecoins.
- Both features launch first in the U.S., with Coinbase pegging the potential audience at more than 150 million stablecoin holders worldwide and more capabilities planned in the coming months.
- Brett Tejpaul, head of Coinbase Institutional, called Citi "exactly the kind of regulated banking partner the digital asset economy needs to move from experimentation to everyday commerce."
- The expansion builds on a partnership first announced in October 2025, when the two companies said they would work on fiat pay-ins and payouts to smooth crypto on- and off-ramps for Citi's institutional clients.
- Citi announced plans in August to add Bitcoin custody to its Custody+ suite, while Coinbase last week rolled out fixed-rate USDC loans against Bitcoin powered by Morpho and in August launched tokenized stocks on Base for non-U.S. users.
Why it matters: Citi's merchant clients can now tap into Coinbase's stablecoin payment rails—and a user base the firm pegs at over 150 million stablecoin holders—without building any crypto infrastructure themselves. For Coinbase, integration with Spring by Citi gives its payments business a distribution channel into the bank's institutional client base, turning stablecoin acceptance from a crypto-native feature into a standard merchant option.
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