Citi and Coinbase Team on Digital Asset Payment Capabilities for Institutional Clients

Citi and Coinbase plan 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.

During the first phase of their collaboration, the companies will focus on fiat pay-ins and pay-outs, supporting Coinbase’s on- and off-ramps and payments orchestration, Citi said in a Monday (Oct. 27) press release .

The companies plan to announce other initiatives in the coming months, according to the release.

“The financial landscape is changing fast, and we’re thrilled to join Coinbase to explore new and innovative payment options for our global clients,” Debopama Sen , head of payments, services at Citi, said in the release. “With more than 300 payment clearing networks across 94 markets globally, we see collaborating with Coinbase as a natural extension of our ‘network of networks’ approach, further supporting our clients to make payments as if there were no borders.”

In its own announcement of the collaboration, Coinbase said in a blog post that this effort will combine its experience building infrastructure for digital assets with Citi’s global payments network.

“This collaboration is part of our broader mission to make digital assets a trusted and integral part of the global economy,” Coinbase said in its post. “By working with Citi and other major banks, asset managers, payment service providers and other financial institutions, we’re building the infrastructure that the global economy needs to adopt and scale digital asset solutions.”

Coinbase expects the next wave of crypto adoption to come from payroll departments, procurement teams and accountants reconciling cross-border invoices, Sid Coelho-Prabhu , senior director of product at Coinbase, who is leading the charge on Coinbase Business , told PYMNTS in an interview posted Oct. 23.

Meanwhile, Citi said Oct. 14, amid its third quarter earnings report, that it is repositioning its Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) segment, historically its backbone business for global cash management, as a platform at the intersection of corporate banking and next-generation financial technology .

This is part of the bank’s broader effort to position itself as a technology-driven institution.

“Investments in new products, digital assets and AI are driving innovation and improved capabilities across the franchise,” Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser said during the earnings call.