Circle and Nium Launch Stablecoin Settlement Partnership

Nium and Circle have teamed to link stablecoin settlement with global payout infrastructure.

The partnership will see the cross-border payments company join Circle’s Payments Network (CPN) as a payout partner, the companies said in a Thursday (May 27) news release.

This will allow financial institutions to move funds via Circle’s USDC stablecoin and settle in local currencies across more than 190 countries.

“Traditional and onchain payment rails are converging, and that convergence demands infrastructure that banks, fintechs, and global enterprises can rely on at scale,” said Prajit Nanu, founder and CEO of Nium.

“By partnering with Circle and joining CPN, we are combining Circle’s regulated settlement instrument with Nium’s global payout reach to deliver a more seamless way for institutions to move money worldwide.”

The integration provides CPN participants with direct access to Nium’s payout rails through a single interface, supporting transactions in 100 different currencies. This technical connection is designed to streamline the conversion process through integrated foreign exchange (FX) optimization and smart routing.

By automating these steps, the release added, the companies hope to remove the need for institutions to do things like managing multiple local service providers.

“Financial institutions are increasingly looking for ways to use stablecoins to solve persistent payments pain points,” said Kash Razzaghi, chief commercial officer at Circle.

“Through our partnership with Nium and their integration into Circle Payments Network, we are extending USDC from a settlement instrument into a complete payments flow, helping institutions move money globally with greater speed, transparency, and capital efficiency.”

In related news, PYMNTS wrote last week about the use of stablecoins in B2B marketplaces, arguing that the figure of this practice might depend less on technological efficiency and more on whether they preserve the credibility, legal certainty and interoperability that took traditional settlement systems decades to develop.

“Large marketplaces increasingly orchestrate not only transactions but also treasury functions, supplier payments, financing relationships and liquidity management,” the report said. “In many cases, marketplaces already resemble quasi-financial institutions.”

They hold balances, handle payouts, optimize working capital and facilitate international commerce between participants doing business across multiple jurisdictions. However, most of this activity relies on settlement rails created decades ago.

Stablecoins have the potential to compress treasury management, liquidity coordination and payment orchestration into software infrastructure, which could mean faster settlement, automated payouts, and less foreign exchange friction, PYMNTS wrote.

“Yet the more stablecoins position themselves as infrastructure, the more they encounter the same constraints that govern all critical financial infrastructure: trust, legal certainty and settlement finality,” that report added.