Ramp to Launch Stablecoin-Backed Corporate Cards for Cross-Border Transactions

Ramp will expand its issuing partnership with Stripe to launch stablecoin-backed corporate cards designed to facilitate cross-border transactions.

The combination of stablecoin-backed cards and Ramp’s corporate card and financial operations platform will enable issuance of new card programs in multiple countries at once, Ramp said in a Wednesday (May 7) press release.

The integration will start with select Latin American markets and then expand to countries in Europe, Africa and Asia, according to the release.

“The product we are developing in partnership with Stripe is about improving how businesses spend globally, empowering our customers everywhere with a radically simpler and more stable way to transact across borders,” Subham Agarwal, director of product and head of product marketing at Ramp, said in the release. “We saw the pain our customers experience from inefficiencies in international finance, and are working hard to fix it.”

Currently, when businesses move money internationally, payments typically take five or more business days to settle, transactions cost $50 or more in fees and currency swings create financial risk, according to the release.

Businesses also find that issuing corporate cards internationally is complicated by country-specific regulations and payment rail variations, the release said.

The stablecoin-backed corporate cards created by the partnership of Ramp and Stripe will eliminate these pain points by enabling businesses to fund a wallet using local currency and make card purchases that work as standard local payments, per the release.

The solution will also shield funds from local currency devaluation and allow businesses to access Ramp’s spend management and financial automation tools globally.

“By working with Stripe to extend Ramp’s platform to previously unreachable markets, businesses in emerging economies will gain access to the same advanced financial tools that have helped over 30,000+ U.S. companies save billions of dollars and millions of hours,” the release said.

Stablecoins and other blockchain-based cross-border solutions are being embraced by firms looking to find a better way to transact and expand internationally, PYMNTS reported in January.

Stripe Co-founder and CEO Patrick Collison said Wednesday (May 7) that stablecoins and artificial intelligence are two “gale-force tailwinds” that are fundamentally reshaping the economy.

When Ramp announced in March that it was valued at $13 billion when new and existing investors purchased Ramp secondaries from employees and investors, the company said it plans to accelerate its product development and launch new product lines in 2025.