Ramp Opens Stablecoin Accounts and Payments to Business Clients

Financial operations platform Ramp says it has begun offering customers stablecoin accounts and payments.

The new offering, announced Tuesday (July 21), gives businesses a single platform for holding, moving and accounting for fiat and stablecoin funds alike.

“Stablecoins have become a normal way for businesses around the world to get paid and pay others, but for most finance teams they still live in a separate system and seem complicated to use — outside the approval flows, controls, and accounting that govern every other dollar,” the company said in a news release. “Ramp’s stablecoin accounts let companies hold stablecoin balances, earn rewards, pay vendors and reconcile every transaction automatically in their existing accounting system.”

The release argued there are limitations on traditional money movement, using the example of a transaction from a U.S. customer to a vendor in Argentina that must pass through a series of correspondent banks, arriving three to five business days later.

“Businesses shouldn’t need a second financial system just because a payment settles on different rails,” said Andrew Chapello, Ramp’s stablecoin product manager. “With stablecoin accounts, whether you’re paying a vendor in dollars, USDT, or USDC, it’s the same approval, the same controls, and the same books. That’s what it takes for stablecoins to become genuinely useful to every business, not just for crypto companies.”

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows that many businesses are taking a measured approach to stablecoins. As covered here last month, 23% of CFOs expect the tokens to become at least somewhat important over the next three years, compared to 10% who said the same thing about crypto currency.

And 45% of finance chiefs say integration with major banking providers would make stablecoins a more meaningful part of their payment flows.

“That is the strongest factor cited for stablecoins and suggests that firms may be more comfortable when digital assets move through institutions they already use,” PYMNTS wrote.

In other stablecoin news, PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster spoke Tuesday with Nium Founder and CEO Prajit Nanu, who said the benefit of these coins is one they are not usually sold on.

“Today, stablecoins are like a drug trying to treat 20 different problems,” Nanu said. “Where we see a significant amount of opportunity is stablecoin not as a payments value, but as a settlement value,” he added. “Where we think stablecoin has the biggest value as, is a treasury layer across all the entities, where I can move money instantly among my entities.”