Citi and Coinbase Link Bank Accounts and Stablecoins

Published October 5, 2026, 04:35 UTC

In short: Citi and Coinbase have expanded their partnership. Coinbase will use Citi's banking infrastructure for accounts that turn incoming dollars into stablecoins. Citi's business clients will be able to accept stablecoin payments and receive ordinary money, without holding crypto themselves.

What was announced

The two companies announced the expansion on September 28, in a Citi press release. It has two parts.

Coinbase Virtual Accounts. Coinbase has chosen Citi's Virtual Account Wallet, part of Citi's banking-as-a-service offering, to power its virtual accounts. Coinbase's payments customers get bank-account-like features to accept, hold and pay funds, and incoming traditional money (fiat) is converted into stablecoins automatically. Citi calls that conversion "an industry-first."

Stablecoin checkout for merchants. Citi's institutional clients will be able to accept stablecoin payments at checkout through Spring by Citi, its payment acceptance platform. Coinbase Payments handles the stablecoin side and converts the coins to fiat, and Citi settles the funds as the bank of record. Citi said this lets merchants reach "over 150 million stablecoin holders globally" without holding or managing digital assets.

Both services launch first in the United States, and the companies said they will work on more features "in the coming months." According to The Block, the firms first announced a collaboration in October 2025.

What the companies said

"Clients building on Coinbase have always needed a fast, compliant bridge between fiat and stablecoins, and Citi gives us that at scale," said Alec Lovett, Coinbase's head of infrastructure product, in the release.

Brett Tejpaul, head of Coinbase Institutional, said: "Citi is exactly the kind of regulated banking partner the digital asset economy needs to move from experimentation to everyday commerce."

The announcement came on the day Citi CEO Jane Fraser gave a keynote at the Sibos banking conference in Miami, American Banker reported. In it, she said: "We've been putting a lot of time into how we help our clients release trapped liquidity around the world." Shahmir Khaliq, Citi's head of services, told the publication that some tech and digital businesses "may receive stablecoins as a part of their payments" because their own customers operate with digital assets.

Citi also said it was expanding Citi Token Services, which Citi says enables real-time, round-the-clock cross-border US dollar payments, to Japan and the United Arab Emirates, bringing it to seven markets.

Why it matters

The model puts a large bank in the middle. The merchant deals with Citi, receives ordinary money, and never has to hold the coins. Citi says it moves about $6 trillion a day, though it has not said how much stablecoin volume it expects from these services.

Coinbase gets a regulated bank behind the accounts it offers businesses, covering the on- and off-ramps between bank money and stablecoins. Lovett described that bridge as something Coinbase's clients "have always needed."

The timing fits a wider shift. US regulators are writing rules for stablecoin issuers under the GENIUS Act (see our report on the Fed's proposal), and stablecoin supply has held near $300 billion; see our Q3 stablecoin market report. Our explainer on how stablecoins work covers the basics.

What we do not know yet

The release does not name which stablecoins are supported, give fees or a launch date for clients, or say which merchants have signed up. It also gives no figures for expected volume. We will update this story when the companies publish more detail.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• Citi, Citi and Coinbase Expand Collaboration to Connect Digital and Fiat Payments for Corporations and Consumers (Sept. 28, 2026), primary source
• The Block, Citi expands Coinbase partnership to power stablecoin payments for businesses (Sept. 28, 2026)
• American Banker, Citi extends fiat-stablecoin interoperability with Coinbase (Sept. 29, 2026)

Related: Coinbase Stock Slips as Wells Fargo Opens Coverage