Corpay Teams With Circle to Expand Stablecoin Payments

Payments company Corpay has teamed with Circle to expand global stablecoin usage.

The collaboration involves Corpay working with a Circle subsidiary to embed Circle’s USDC stablecoin into Corpay’s cross-border pay-in and pay-out rails, the companies announced in a Thursday (Aug. 7) news release.

This will let companies “access blockchain’s 24/7 settlement and programmability,” the release added, while also offering integrated access to USDC through Corpay’s platform.

Businesses can also fund transactions in USDC (and where available, EURC) around the clock, with payouts in local currencies across more than 80 countries. And Corpay is working to allow its commercial card products — including fleet, purchasing and travel cards — to draw directly from USDC balances, the companies added.

“By working with Circle and adding USDC to our funding and disbursement capabilities, we’re giving our clients a new real-time option that complements the payment networks they already trust,” Mark Frey, group president at Corpay Cross-Border Solutions, said in the release.

“This collaboration will unlock programmable controls and 24/7 liquidity without changing the way they transact today.”

Kash Razzaghi, Circle’s chief business officer, added that the partnership, in embedding USDC into Corpay’s network, is “delivering enterprise-grade stablecoin utility across card payments and cross-border FX, all while upholding the compliance and reliability standards that global businesses demand.”

The partnership is happening at a time when, as noted here earlier this week, stablecoins are “reshaping cross-border payments,” a trend illustrated in earnings call commentary from companies as diverse as SoFi, Coinbase, Visa, PayPal and Robinhood.

For the better part of the last decade, that report added, cryptocurrency and traditional finance operated in parallel.

Stablecoins, which are blockchain-based tokens pegged to fiat currencies like the dollar, emerged in the cryptocurrency market as tools for liquidity and arbitrage. At the same time, banks and payment networks kept spending to modernize their legacy payment rails, with not much overlap between the two spheres.

“That separation is now collapsing,” PYMNTS wrote. “Cross-border payments represent a sprawling and inefficient market, with most transactions consisting of B2B flows. The inefficiencies in this system include multi-day settlement times, high fees, limited transparency and heavy reliance on intermediaries.”

The report added that the digital currencies provide a technical alternative that can alleviate these pain points, thanks to “instantly settled transactions, lower costs, programmable transfers and global accessibility.”

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