Corpay, the leading corporate payments company, has partnered with stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK to provide stablecoin wallets and settlement capabilities to its global customer base.

 

The partnership, announced on Monday, will see the integration of stablecoin wallet capabilities into Corpay’s financial platform, enabling its customers to view stablecoin balances alongside their fiat balances, while also providing embedded stablecoin wallets for sending, receiving, storing, and converting stablecoins, all within the platform.

 

 

Corpay will also integrate stablecoin rails into its treasury operations, reducing reliance on pre-funded accounts when sending and receiving funds. This is expected to improve capital efficiency and enhance the way funds are moved globally. As a result, customers will no longer be limited to traditional banking hours, as the embedded stablecoin rails will allow them to process transactions even outside these hours.

 

“At our scale, the ability to move liquidity quickly and reliably is critical,” said Mark Frey, Group President, Corpay Cross Border Solutions. “Stablecoins introduce a 24/7 settlement capability that strengthens our existing infrastructure. BVNK provides the technology and compliance framework we need to deliver this securely and at scale.”

 

Jesse Hemson Struthers, CEO of BVNK, said in a statement that he believes stablecoins are reshaping the foundation of global payments, and that Corpay’s scale and reach make the two companies ideal partners in bringing these stablecoin capabilities into the mainstream.

 

What to Know About Corpay and BVNK

Corpay is a global S&P 500 corporate payments company that enables businesses and users to manage and pay expenses in a simple and controlled manner. In 2025, it recorded revenue of about $4.5 billion, a 14% year over year increase, and reported $1.26 billion in revenue last quarter. Corpay currently serves over 800,000 business clients globally.

 

BVNK, on the other hand, is an enterprise-grade stablecoin payment infrastructure company that enables businesses and corporates to send, receive, store, convert, and settle transactions using stablecoins. 

 

As one of the most notable stablecoin infrastructure companies, BVNK processed about $30 billion in annualized stablecoin payment volume last year and has been integrated into several major traditional finance platforms, including Visa, Mastercard, Worldpay, and Deel.

 

 

Polygon, the leading Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, has partnered with Hinkal, a blockchain privacy protocol, to launch private stablecoin payments within its crypto wallet.

 

The partnership, according to Polygon, is aimed at bridging the gap between on chain rails and the needs of institutional finance, while facilitating private stablecoin payments among institutional clients that often process large volumes of transactions.

 

 

Talking about institutional clients, Polygon wrote on its blog, “They won't move operational flows onto a ledger that broadcasts every counterparty and every amount to every observer on the network. We've now enabled what institutions expect in the Polygon wallet”.

 

To maintain transparency, most public blockchains are designed to publicly record key transaction details, including information about the sender, the recipient, and the amount sent. While this level of transparency is unmatched, it has, however, prevented large institutions that uphold high standards of privacy from coming on chain.

 

To ensure institutional clients do not continue making this trade off, Polygon, in collaboration with Hinkal, created this stablecoin payment privacy feature that allows both retail and institutional users to make stablecoin payments within the Polygon wallet, while shielding sensitive details about the transaction, including information about the sender, the recipient, and the amount transacted.

 

To provide the best on-chain experience, this privacy feature leverages Polygon’s speed and low-cost transactions and Hinkal’s zero-knowledge proofs, which allow the shielding and routing of stablecoin payments. Since Hinkal is a non-custodial protocol, funds will always remain in the custody of users.

 

Polygon Accelerates Blockchain Expansion Efforts

The rollout of these private stablecoin payments comes a few days after social media giant Meta partnered with Polygon to enable payments to creators in the USDC stablecoin, an initiative that is expected to reach more than 160 countries before the end of the year.

 

As part of its expansion efforts and its big bet on stablecoins, Polygon acquired Coinme, a U.S.-based cryptocurrency cash exchange, in January of this year for $250 million. It has also integrated with and partnered with major traditional finance platforms, including Visa and Mastercard.

 

 

Social media giant Meta is currently running a pilot program that tests issuing creators’ payouts in stablecoins. “Meta now offers USDC stablecoin payouts via supported crypto wallets on the Solana and Polygon blockchain networks,” the team wrote on its Business Help Center page

 

Since this is still a pilot program, only creators in Colombia and the Philippines are currently eligible for the service, with the program expected to expand to more than 160 countries before the end of the year, according to an X post by Polygon Labs.

 

 

While the announcement was well received by many in the crypto community, a spokesperson for Meta clarified the goal of the initiative, stating that Meta was not issuing its own stablecoin but was instead tapping into Circle’s $77 billion USDC stablecoin, with plans to integrate the stablecoin into its payment infrastructure.

 

The Meta USDC creator payout program is currently supported by several popular crypto wallets, including MetaMask, Phantom, and Binance, with global payments platform Stripe handling the technical infrastructure and serving as the payments provider. Solana and Polygon are the only blockchain networks currently supported for this program.

 

Meta Pushes Again Into Crypto After Setbacks

Meta’s recent move into crypto follows several setbacks it has had to deal with in the past. In 2019, it launched Libra, a cryptocurrency which it said could be used across its different social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

 

However, things did not go as planned, as some stakeholders, such as PayPal, Mastercard, and Visa, which were involved in the project, started pulling out due to scrutiny and backlash from U.S. regulators and from some members of the U.S. Congress.

 

Although Meta made several efforts to save the project, including rebranding it from Libra to Diem, a stablecoin backed by the U.S. dollar in an effort to appease federal regulators, nothing worked, as federal regulators stated that the project could not move forward.

 

Other projects associated with Libra and Diem, such as the Novi wallet, a cryptocurrency wallet built by Meta that allowed users to hold and transfer Libra, also failed, and the entire project was eventually wound down. According to Stuart Levey, then CEO of the Diem Association, “it became clear from our dialogue with federal regulators that the project could not move ahead.”

 

 

Global payments giant Visa has partnered with the decentralized onchain bank WeFi to enable crypto based payments while allowing users to maintain full custody of their digital assets.

 

The partnership will initially focus on exploring ways in which WeFi’s onchain banking infrastructure can be leveraged to scale stablecoin based payments in selected markets.

 

“As interest in digital assets grows, our focus is on making these new models practical at scale by connecting them to payment experiences people already trust,” Mathieu Altwegg, Visa’s Head of Product and Solutions in Europe, said. “This collaboration demonstrates how Visa’s global network interacts with onchain models.”

 

The partnership is significant as it represents a shift in custodial practices, where users often hand over their digital assets to cryptocurrency exchanges. Since WeFi offers self custody, users will be able to maintain full control of their assets while leveraging Visa’s global payment rails and using digital assets to make payments anywhere Visa is accepted.

 

The rollout will take place one region at a time, with Europe, Asia, and Latin America among the first beneficiaries, while expansion continues into additional markets depending on regulatory approvals and partnerships.

 

“People expect money to work seamlessly across borders without unnecessary complexity. We see this partnership as a way to work with Visa’s capabilities as we continue to develop WeFi’s debanking offering across key regions,” said Maksym Sakharov, WeFi co founder and CEO.

 

What is WeFi? 

WeFi is a blockchain based decentralized on chain bank (deobank) founded by Maksym Sakharov and Reeve Collins, a co founder of Tether.

 

Through its mobile first, simple interface, WeFi provides financial services to more than 1.4 billion unbanked people worldwide, allowing them to maintain full custody of their digital assets while facilitating crypto based payments and cross border transfers.

 

Since its launch last year, WeFi has grown significantly, serving more than 150,000 users across over 80 countries. To support crypto based payments, WeFi has partnered with industry players including LayerZero and has announced integrations with companies such as Binance and Visa.

 

 

Global financial services company Western Union has announced its plans to launch its long awaited U.S. Dollar Payment Token (USDPT) stablecoin next month.

 

The Solana based USDPT stablecoin, which is to be issued by crypto bank Anchorage Digital, is already in its final stages of preparation and is expected to launch, Devin McGranahan, Western Union CEO and President, revealed during the firm’s recent first quarter earnings call.

 

"It is no longer a question of if Western Union will be active in digital assets; it is now how fast we can scale," McGranahan said during the call with investors and financial analysts.

 

McGranahan also revealed in a Q&A session that the USDPT stablecoin will not be launched as a consumer product, but will instead initially be used internally as an alternative to the SWIFT network. With the USDPT stablecoin, Western Union aims to facilitate fast transaction settlements in real time with its agents around the world.

 

Other Services to Be Launched Alongside USDPT

Alongside the USDPT stablecoin, Western Union will be launching two additional services and products: its USD stablecard and the Digital Asset Network, or DAN, which allows digital assets, including USDPT and crypto wallets, to connect with Western Union’s existing infrastructure.

 

By means of a single connection to Western Union’s API, DAN provides off ramp services to users, enabling them to convert stablecoins held in crypto wallets into local currencies.

 

"Through DAN, millions of wallet users will be able to move from digital assets into local currency using Western Union's retail network, with an experience that is simple for customers and familiar for our agents," McGranahan said, while also stating that the first partner of the network will be revealed next week. DAN will be made available in over 360,000 locations across more than 200 countries and territories.

 

To allow users to hold value in stablecoins, including USDPT, Western Union will also be launching its USD stablecard, a consumer based card developed by crypto wallet provider Rain and Visa.

 

The stablecard, according to McGranahan, will be especially compelling in inflation sensitive markets where customers want dollar denominated value, and it will be launched across dozens of markets worldwide. With the card, users living in areas hit by high inflation will be able to hold USD based stablecoins and spend them globally.

 

 

Singapore-based fintech company Nium has partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to integrate the USDC stablecoin into its global payment network.

 

The integration, announced this week, leverages Coinbase’s custody, liquidity, and wallet infrastructure, allowing Nium’s clients and users to perform cross-border payments in USDC and settle transactions in either stablecoins or local currencies.

 

 

As Coinbase will provide the wallet infrastructure, Nium clients will be able to fund accounts in USDC within a Coinbase wallet embedded in the Nium platform. The USDC can then be converted to fiat currency by Coinbase and paid out through Nium, all within a single workflow on the platform.

 

Through this partnership, Nium will enable end-to-end stablecoin-to-fiat payment flows that allow users to send, receive, and convert stablecoins into fiat across more than 190 countries within a single platform.

 

Speaking about the partnership, Prajit Nanu, CEO of Nium, said it is aimed at providing clients with a more efficient way to move and manage money globally. He added that the collaboration improves capital efficiency while supporting a future in which stablecoins play a central role in Nium’s payment stack.

 

About Nium 

Based in Singapore, Nium is a cross-border payments company that allows users, including retail and institutional clients, to perform cross-border remittances and transactions.

 

Apart from being a core traditional finance company, Nium has in the past made several pro-crypto moves, especially in the stablecoin space.

 

In March of this year, it launched a stablecoin card issuance platform that allows companies holding stablecoins to issue spending cards on both the Visa and Mastercard networks through a single API integration on its platform. To enable USDC settlements on its platform, Nium last year participated in Visa’s stablecoin settlement pilot, which eventually made it possible for the company to settle cross-border transactions using stablecoins across different supported blockchain networks.

 

Like Nium, several other Singapore-based traditional finance companies have taken pro-crypto steps in recent times, integrating blockchain technology and crypto support into their platforms. Notable among them is DBS Bank, Singapore’s largest bank, which launched the DBS Digital Exchange, a platform for asset tokenization, crypto trading, and custody.

 

Cryptocurrency exchanges, including Kraken, OKX, Binance, and Bybit, have also partnered with traditional finance institutions to help bridge the gap between traditional finance and decentralized finance.

 

 

Coinbase dropped a new public discovery tool aimed at making it easier for both people and AI agents to find and use paid online services that settle instantly with crypto micropayments.

 

The platform went live today at agentic.market and works as an open directory for thousands of services built on the x402 protocol. You can jump in and browse immediately without login, API keys, nothing like that required. It pulls fresh data straight from real payments moving through Coinbase’s Developer Platform, so you see live pricing, how much volume each service is actually getting, how many different users are paying, and the latest activity timestamps. This release picks up right where Coinbase left off with its Agentic Wallets back in February, which first let AI agents hold their own funds and spend them independently. 

 

The x402 Bazaar is where paid online services show up once they’re set up with the right discovery info and start receiving payments, so you don’t have to submit a separate listing. It acts as x402’s backend index, tracking what’s available, how it’s priced, and what’s happening on-chain, while Agentic.Market turns that into a public marketplace where people and AI agents can easily search, compare, and plug these services into their workflows. This includes things like AI model runs, data and analytics feeds, media tools for images and video, search and scraping services, social and messaging integrations, core infrastructure like storage and compute, and even trading tools for moving assets around. Coinbase says the protocol is built so both humans and machines can pay programmatically for things like paid APIs, pay‑per‑call tools, and agents buying access at runtime, so the whole setup is really about making it simple.

 

 

Coinbase noted that the x402 protocol already has more than 165 million transactions and moved roughly 50 million dollars in volume, with over 480,000 agents actively taking part across around 100,000 services. The directory puts the busiest and most reliable ones front and center, which helps both humans and machines figure out what is actually getting real traction day to day. 

 

This is about smoothing out the little daily frictions that slow down building, and rolling out useful agents that can move naturally between on-chain steps like shifting assets or chasing better yields and off-chain jobs like running inference or grabbing fresh data, all paid for through in stablecoins. Teams handling internal automation or tools that face customers now have one, clean spot with data to check out providers without digging through random docs or dealing with payment mismatches. Work in DeFi or tokenization gets clearer ways to add agent driven logic that works natively instead of forcing awkward bridges or extra steps.

 

This is still early, so real momentum will come down to more services jumping on the x402 standard and agents getting better at handling payment details and safety checks on their own. Even with that, the way it indexes itself automatically and stays completely open shows Coinbase leaning toward letting the ecosystem expand through actual use rather than any kind of control. Groups that start implementing x402 features into their agents today could end up in a much better spot, as these machine-to-machine payments become normal.

 

 

Global payments giant Visa has launched a validator node on Tempo’s Layer 1 blockchain network, enabling it to participate directly in the verification and processing of transactions on the network.

 

The validator role follows a six month collaboration between Visa and Tempo’s engineering team, which worked to integrate Visa’s secure infrastructure into the Tempo network. According to Visa, the validator will be configured and managed in house.

 

With the integration of Visa’s infrastructure into the Tempo network, Visa joins Stripe and Zodia Custody as the first external validators to verify and process transactions on the Tempo blockchain, with more validators expected in the future.

 

 

Since Visa processes billions of transactions globally, its role as an anchor validator places it in a crucial position in securing Tempo’s blockchain and strengthening its resilience, reliability and performance for stablecoin payment use cases.

 

Speaking on the collaboration, Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, said the move highlights Visa’s role in supporting the development of stablecoin payment systems and its commitment to reliability, security, and trust in blockchain networks.

 

What is Tempo Layer-1 Blockchain? 

Tempo is a purpose-built Layer 1 blockchain designed for large-scale stablecoin payments and other real-world financial applications. Although Tempo was initially incubated by Stripe and the crypto venture capital firm Paradigm, it became an independent company with its own team, Tempo Labs, in September 2025.

 

Unlike most Layer 1 blockchains, which are designed for general-purpose decentralized finance activity, the Tempo blockchain was designed for fast, low-cost, and reliable stablecoin transfers that traditional blockchains often struggle to support under high load.

 

The Tempo blockchain was also designed for agentic and machine-to-machine commerce. Through Stripe’s Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), the Tempo network enables autonomous AI agents to make payments and conduct other real-world commerce activities without human intervention.

 

Visa Intensifies Push for Blockchain Adoption

Visa remains one of the few traditional finance (TradFi) giants spearheading global adoption and integration of blockchain technology into TradFi payment infrastructure. Similar to its most recent Tempo validator role, in March of this year, Visa became the first major payment company to serve as a super validator on Canton Network, a privacy-focused institutional blockchain network, with plans to also become one of the validators on Circle’s Arc blockchain.

 

It has also expanded its push for blockchain-based payments, including the launch of USDC settlement on Solana for US residents, enabling support for four stablecoins on its platform, and powering over 130 stablecoin card programs in more than 40 countries.

 

 

OpenFX, a fintech infrastructure startup founded by Prabhakar Reddy, co-founder of crypto brokerage company FalconX, has raised $94 million to expand its stablecoin-based cross-border foreign exchange (FX) payment rails.

 

The Series A round, which took place in March, was led by Accel and Atomico, with other investors including Lightspeed Faction, M13, Northzone, and Pantera participating.

 

 

The $94 million raised is aimed at expanding OpenFX’s presence in Latin America. Despite the region being a challenging market to enter, OpenFX reported strong success during a test deployment in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.

 

“Within six weeks, LATAM became our highest-volume region. We had succeeded at scale where so many other players were still struggling with proof of concepts,” the company said.

 

The team attributes its success in the region to its ability to deliver liquidity globally, quickly, and reliably, as well as its deep understanding of what payment service providers (PSPs) and remittance providers require.

 

OpenFX also plans to expand into Southeast Asia. Despite the region having some of the world’s more developed payment systems, cross-border payments remain slow and fragmented. By building a deep liquidity infrastructure, OpenFX aims to address this issue and has said it will be launching in Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.

 

With these expansion plans underway, OpenFX will extend its presence beyond the United States, United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and India, where it currently operates.

 

The Team’s Progress So Far

Since its launch in 2024, the OpenFx cross-border infrastructure has processed billions of dollars, with an annualized processing volume of $45 billion.

 

In its first month of operation, the team says it processed $500,000. Eight weeks later, that figure had grown to $500,000 per week. Three months after launch, it was processing $500,000 per day, and today it processes approximately $500,000 per minute, with 98% of transactions settling in under 60 minutes.

 

The team also says it has onboarded more than 100 global institutional clients to its platform, including fintechs, neobanks, remittance platforms, and payroll processors.

 

OpenFx has now raised a total of $117 million, including $23 million in 2025 in a funding round led by Accel.

 

 

Jack Dorsey's Square has rolled out Bitcoin payments for millions in the United States. Starting March 30, Bitcoin payments are now switched on by default for millions of eligible U.S. sellers on the platform, no opt-in, no lengthy setup, no technical expertise required. For a lot of small business owners, they may not even notice it happened until a customer tries to pay with BTC at checkout.

 

Block, Square's parent company, confirmed the rollout through a post on X, telling merchants they can now "start accepting bitcoin that instantly converts to cash at checkout, with no additional setup." The shift builds directly on the Square Bitcoin initiative the company announced in late 2025, but this time it is not optional infrastructure sitting in the background. Bitcoin acceptance is now baked into the payment stack that millions of American businesses already use daily for point-of-sale, inventory and payroll.

 

 

Zero Fees, Instant Settlement, No Volatility Risk

Square is making it as easy as possible for businesses to integrate Bticoin payments. When a customer pays in Bitcoin, the transaction settles near-instantly via the Lightning Network and converts to U.S. dollars at the moment of sale. The merchant never holds BTC, never worries about the price dropping overnight and does not need to make any changes to their accounting. They just receive dollars, same as always.

 

On top of that, Square is waiving processing fees on Bitcoin payments through the end of 2026. Starting January 1, 2027, the fee becomes 1% per transaction, which is still well below what most card networks charge. For small businesses watching margins closely, that gap is not nothing. It is a real financial incentive to keep the feature on, or at minimum to not bother turning it off.

 

Miles Suter, Block's head of Bitcoin product, framed the goal plainly: making it easier for millions of businesses to accept bitcoin at scale. What he left unsaid is how unusual the default-on design actually is. Most payment processors that support crypto, including PayPal, Stripe and Coinbase Commerce, require merchants to actively enable cryptocurrency in their settings. Square has flipped that logic entirely.

 

 

The Default-On Model Could Be the Whole Story

Industry observers have zeroed in on the opt-out structure as the most consequential design choice here. Merchants who do not want to accept BTC can disable the feature through their Square dashboard. But it is on. For everyone. By default. The expectation is that most won't bother. Inertia is a powerful force in business software. If even a small fraction of Square's millions of active sellers leave Bitcoin payments on, the practical footprint of BTC in everyday commerce expands in a way that years of crypto advocacy has failed to achieve.

 

Lightspark CEO David Marcus, the former president of PayPal, was quick to call the move transformative. He compared it to the early standardization of TCP/IP, the protocol that allowed disparate computer networks to communicate through a shared standard. "Enabling Bitcoin payments at scale could mirror how TCP/IP became the foundational protocol of the internet," Marcus said. It is a big claim. But the underlying logic, that Bitcoin could become a neutral, interoperable layer for value transfer the way TCP/IP became one for data, is not a new idea. Dorsey himself has argued something similar for years.

 

 

Part of a Bigger Block Ecosystem Push

This rollout did not come out of nowhere. Block has been building toward it for a while. Through Cash App, the company already serves consumers who can buy, sell and transfer Bitcoin. Bitkey gives users a self-custody hardware wallet option. Spiral funds open-source Bitcoin development. Proto is building out mining infrastructure. Square's auto-enabled payments are the commercial layer on top of all that, the piece that ties the ecosystem to Main Street.

 

This move also arrives in a regulatory environment that, while still messy in places, is more favorable than it has ever been. The SEC has clarified guidelines for payment processors handling cryptocurrency conversions, giving companies like Square more legal certainty to act. States including Texas and Florida have moved to pass crypto-friendly legislation. Treasury Department officials have signaled support for mainstream payment integration, even as federal frameworks around transaction reporting remain a work in progress.

 

Square's feature is not available to sellers in New York State, where the regulatory picture remains more complicated. The company has not commented on a timeline for expansion there.

 

 

What Comes Next Is the Real Question

There are real unknowns here. Building the infrastructure is one thing. Getting consumers to actually choose Bitcoin at checkout, when they could just tap a card, is another. Merchant adoption, in the sense of sellers actively keeping the feature on and promoting it to customers, is not guaranteed either. And competitive dynamics are shifting. PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin is expanding across 70 markets, representing a different bet on which form of digital money wins out in everyday commerce.

 

Dorsey's position, and Block's broader strategy, is that Bitcoin's long-term infrastructure potential outweighs the short-term predictability of dollar-pegged stablecoins. The company is absorbing the volatility risk so merchants don't have to, which is essentially a sustained institutional bet on Bitcoin's direction. Whether that bet pays off will depend on whether consumers follow the infrastructure that has now been built for them. That part, nobody fully controls, but it will be interesting to watch the numbers and who is actually using this.

 

Kast, a stablecoin payments company, has raised $80 million in a Series A funding round co-led by QED Investors and Left Lane Capital, bringing its valuation to $600 million.

 

According to the team, the funding will be used to accelerate Kast’s global expansion across North America, Latin America, and the Middle East, as well as to expand the company’s workforce, licensing, and product development efforts.

 

 

What Kast is Building

Kast is a stablecoin-powered neobank founded in 2024 by Daniel Bertoli, an ex-partner at Quona Capital, and Raagulan Pathy, a former executive at Circle Internet Financial, the company behind the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin.

 

To reduce the delays and high costs often associated with international remittances through traditional banking systems, Kast is building a blockchain-based platform that uses stablecoins as its settlement layer. 

 

According to the team, “Our end game is clear: to become the leading neobank for the stablecoin economy, serving both users and businesses.” 

 

To ensure that users and businesses of all sizes are catered to, Kast has built a platform that allows users to create digital dollar accounts. These accounts enable users to store dollars digitally, send money globally, and receive international payments. As a result, users do not need a U.S. bank account to hold dollars digitally. 

 

Since its launch in 2024, Kast has achieved a number of impressive milestones, including:

- Reaching over 1 million users on its platform.

- Processing about $5 billion in transaction volume to date.

- Enabling users to send money to more than 190 countries. 

 

This funding marks Kast’s second fundraising round, months after the company raised $10 million in December 2024 in a round led by HongShan Capital Group and Peak XV Partners.

 

 

The Surge of Stablecoins in Institutional Remittances

With a market cap of over $300 billion, stablecoins have seen a remarkable increase in institutional use for cross-border payments. 

 

According to a stablecoin report, enterprise cross-border stablecoin transaction volume grew threefold year over year in 2025, with 25% of corporates now using stablecoins for supply-chain payments, particularly for trade settlement, treasury transfers, and gig-economy payouts. 

 

This increased adoption is due to the very fast settlement times of stablecoins, usually less than 24 hours, a sharp contrast from traditional banking systems, which often take days.

 

Based on current adoption trends, stablecoins are projected to capture 10 to 15% of global cross-border payments by 2030, with their annual settlements reaching approximately $5 trillion by the end of this year.

 

 

Ripple is expanding Ripple Payments, its stablecoin payment platform, for banks, fintechs, enterprises, and financial institutions worldwide. 

 

The goal? To make cross-border transactions faster. By expanding Ripple Payments globally, Ripple aims to make it easier for businesses to move money worldwide in record time. 

 

 

To understand what Ripple is trying to achieve, let's briefly examine how cross-border payments work in traditional banking systems:

 

Before money can be transferred across borders, several banks, often known as a correspondent banking network, are usually involved. These banks work together to ensure users worldwide can send and receive money.

 

While this method of money transfer isn't inherently bad, it is complex and often marred by delays. Thus, a user may often need to wait days to receive funds transferred from users on the other side of the world.

 

This delay and complexity in cross-border transfers are what Ripple aims to remove through its global stablecoin payment platform, Ripple Payments.

 

Ripple Payments is a complete, end-to-end platform that enables banks, fintechs, and companies to move money faster and more cheaply across borders.

 

By using Ripple Payments, fintechs can:

1. Collect funds globally in fiat or stablecoins, automatically convert inflows into their preferred currency, and settle into a unified account.

2. Hold balances using named virtual accounts and wallets that support both end users and internal treasury operations.

3. Exchange funds instantly 24/7/365, including direct access to RLUSD.

4. Pay out in minutes instead of days, including real-time mass disbursements to suppliers, creators, and employees in their preferred currency (fiat or stablecoin).

 

According to the team, Ripple reduces settlement times from days to minutes and eliminates manual processes tied to legacy rails like SWIFT.

 

Ripple Payments is now live in more than 60 markets and has processed over $100 billion in transaction volume to date. The platform has also partnered with over 20 banks, including Switzerland's AMINA Bank, Brazil's Banco Genial, and Malaysia's ECIB.

 

 

The Current State of the Stablecoin Market

The stablecoin market has grown significantly in the last few years. According to Coingecko, the stablecoin currently has a market cap of over $313 billion, with USD Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) having the most market share.

 

To position itself as a payment and stablecoin infrastructure provider, Ripple launched Ripple USD (RLUSD) in 2024, a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the US Dollar and designed for institutional and enterprise use.

 

To facilitate its stablecoin goals, Ripple acquired Rail for $200 million and Palisade for an undisclosed amount. According to the team, these acquisitions were strategic and pivotal to expanding its stablecoin payment platform.