Citi and Coinbase Explore Stablecoins for Corporate Payments
Date: 2025-10-28 Author: Oliver Abernathy Categories: BUSINESS
Investment bank Citi has announced a strategic partnership with Coinbase to explore ways to integrate stablecoins into business payments. According to Bloomberg, the parties plan to create an infrastructure that will allow companies to transfer funds between cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies more quickly and easily, especially in international markets.
One of the key challenges for digital asset market participants is the complexity of depositing and withdrawing funds between traditional banking systems and cryptocurrency applications. Despite the crypto market operating 24/7, the use of legacy financial channels often leads to delays of not just hours but days.
Debopama Sen, Head of Payments at Citi, noted that the bank's clients are increasingly expressing interest in solutions that enable "programmable transactions," where terms are pre-defined. She explained that businesses need tools that combine flexibility, speed, and transparency, without being constrained by bank schedules.
Citi intends to test technological solutions that will enable settlements in stable digital currencies. Sen emphasized that stablecoins could become an important element in the development of digital payments and help expand the range of financial options for corporate clients.
For Coinbase, Brian Foster, Head of Cryptocurrency Services, is overseeing the collaboration. He noted that the company already works with more than 250 banking institutions and financial organizations worldwide. He cited Coinbase's scalable infrastructure, created specifically for working with institutional partners, as a key advantage.
Foster also emphasized that banks' and investors' interest in the crypto industry is growing due to several factors: the increase in stablecoin payments, the development of digital asset ETFs, and the expansion of the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) sector. He believes that collaboration with Citi will be another step toward the mass adoption of crypto technologies in the traditional financial system.
Citi previously published a forecast that tokenized assets could reach 10% of the global financial market by 2030. The bank expects stablecoins issued in partnership with the banking sector to be the main driver of this process.
