Uber Considers Using Stablecoins for Cross-Border Money Transfers

Uber Technologies is reportedly considering using stablecoins to transfer money among different countries.

Stablecoins are appealing to global companies because they can help reduce the cost of moving money, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told Bloomberg on Thursday (June 5) in an interview conducted at the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco.

“That’s super interesting to us and we’re definitely going to take a look,” Khosrowshahi said, according to the report.

Stablecoins can help solve the issues around settlement time, cost and dollar access that are often associated with cross-border transfers, PYMNTS reported Wednesday (June 4).

While traditional cross-border transfers can take up to five business days and involve a daisy chain of correspondent banks, each clipping a fee, stablecoins enable money to move globally with internet speed and without intermediaries. Settlement costs can ultimately fall from $30 wires to sub-dollar fees.

It was reported in May that Meta was considering adopting stablecoins as a way to make cross-border payments and that the company was in discussions with crypto firms.

The company is looking at stablecoins as a way to make cross-border payments without the fees associated with wire transfers and other payment methods. Possible uses of stablecoins could include making small payouts to creators in other regions.

It was reported in March that banks and FinTech also see stablecoins ’ cross-border payments potential.

The world’s largest ones are scrambling to roll out their own stablecoins because they anticipate that cryptocurrencies will transform the cross-border payments market.

When stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Financial debuted on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, its shares tripled in price. While its initial public offering was priced at $31 per share, the stock opened at $69.50 and ultimately closed at $83.23.

“Our transformation into being a public company is a significant and powerful milestone — the world is ready to start upgrading and moving to the internet financial system,” Circle Co-Founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a post on X.

In May, Circle announced that its stablecoin -powered cross-border payments network, the Circle Payments Network (CPN), was live. The network is designed to facilitate the use of stablecoins for mainstream cross-border payments.