Coinbase chose Citi’s Virtual Account Wallet to power Coinbase Virtual Accounts, which enable customers to accept, hold, pay and automatically convert incoming fiat into stablecoins. Citi provides the regulated banking infrastructure that connects these accounts to the global financial system, according to the post.
Alec Lovett, head of infrastructure product at Coinbase, said in the post that by powering its Virtual Accounts with Citi’s regulated banking infrastructure, Coinbase can provide its clients with a fast, compliant bridge between fiat and stablecoins and give them “bank account-like functionality with the speed of stablecoins underneath it.”
Coinbase also adopted Spring by Citi, the bank’s payment acceptance platform for merchant acquiring, gateway technology and settlement, to enable Citi’s institutional clients to accept stablecoin payments without holding or managing stablecoins themselves. Coinbase’s infrastructure automatically converts the digital currency into fiat, and Citi settles the funds as the bank of record, according to the post.
Brett Tejpaul, head of Coinbase Institutional, said in the post: “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.”
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With these capabilities, clients building on Coinbase can offer their customers branded virtual accounts for accepting, holding and sending funds; automatically convert incoming fiat into stablecoins; and enable merchants to receive fiat settlement when their customers pay in stablecoins, according to the post.
The initiatives will launch first in the United States, the post said.
Debopama Sen, head of payments, services at Citi, said in the post that the bank is focused on delivering solutions its clients need to operate in an increasingly fast-paced and complex global economy.
“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,” Sen said.
Citi announced in October that it and Coinbase planned to collaborate on digital asset payment capabilities for the bank’s clients, starting with its institutional clients and potentially expanding to its other global clients in the future.
In its own October announcement of the collaboration, Coinbase said the effort will combine its experience building infrastructure for digital assets with Citi’s global payments network.
Coinbase said in its Monday blog post that it and Citi will add more capabilities in the coming months.
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