Citigroup is working with America’s biggest crypto exchange, Coinbase, in its latest blockchain-based venture.
The two companies said in a joint statement Monday that they were teaming up to allow Citi clients to move between regular money and stablecoins without having to build or manage both banking and crypto systems themselves.
The announcement comes as banks worldwide utilize Bitcoin’s underlying technology to speed up their processes and cater to crypto-hungry customers.
Citi last month said it would allow institutional investors to custody both traditional assets and bitcoin within one framework, rather than needing separate systems, later this year.
“Our clients operate in an increasingly fast-paced and complex global economy, and we’re focused on delivering the solutions they need,” said Debopama Sen, Head of Payments, Services, Citi.
“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.”
There are two parts to the deal, the announcement said. Firstly, Coinbase Virtual Accounts, built on Citi’s banking-as-a-service platform, will give Coinbase’s payments customers bank-account-like features so they can accept, hold, send funds. Citi will provide the regulated banking backbone so that incoming fiat can be automatically converted to stablecoins.
Secondly, Citi’s merchant platform, Spring by Citi, will use Coinbase’s infrastructure so that Citi’s enterprise clients can accept stablecoin payments at checkout. Coinbase will convert the stablecoins to fiat, and Citi settles the funds, so merchants never have to hold or manage crypto directly.
“Fintechs building on Coinbase have always needed a fast, compliant bridge between fiat and stablecoins, and Citi gives us that at scale,” Coinbase’s Head of Infrastructure Product, Alec Lovett, said.
Coinbase and Citi first announced last year that they would partner to enhance digital asset payment capabilities for institutional clients.
Citi has a number of blockchain offerings, including Citi Token Services, which enables real-time cross-border payments using tokenized deposits.
The firm since last year has also been working with other top banks — including Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America — to explore issuing a stablecoin product.
