Citi and Coinbase on September 28, 2026, announced two services that connect bank accounts and stablecoins, one in each direction. Coinbase selected Citi’s Virtual Account Wallet, part of Citi Services’ Banking-as-a-Service offering, to power Coinbase Virtual Accounts, which give Coinbase’s payments customers bank-account-like functionality and convert incoming fiat into stablecoins automatically.
Citi, for its part, will let its institutional clients accept stablecoin payments at checkout through Spring by Citi, its payment acceptance platform. Coinbase Payments powers the acceptance, the payment is converted into fiat automatically, and Citi settles the funds as the bank of record. Both services launch first in the US, with no date given. The news came the same day Citi CEO Jane Fraser gave a keynote at Sibos, Swift’s annual conference, in Miami.
Coinbase customers get bank details through Citi
Coinbase Virtual Accounts let customers accept, hold, and pay funds as they would from a bank account, with incoming fiat converted into stablecoins, a feature Citi calls “an industry-first.” Each customer will get its own bank routing details, Ledger Insights reported. The trade publication noted that a Coinbase subsidiary holds conditional approval for a national trust charter but has no Federal Reserve account and cannot provide deposit services.
Coinbase’s developer documentation, linked from Citi’s release, describes a Virtual Account “powered by Coinbase and Citi,” available on ACH and Fedwire for US customers, with incoming dollars that can be converted and credited as USDC. “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, head of infrastructure product at Coinbase.
Citi merchants will take stablecoins without holding them
Citi says stablecoin acceptance in Spring by Citi lets merchants “serve over 150 million stablecoin holders globally without needing to hold, custody or manage digital assets directly.” Shahmir Khaliq, Citi’s head of Services, told American Banker the bank has in mind “clients who are operating, for example, in the tech world, in the digital world,” some of which may receive stablecoins as payment for services they render.
| Feature | Coinbase Virtual Accounts | Stablecoin acceptance |
|---|---|---|
| User | Coinbase’s payments customers | Citi’s institutional clients |
| Citi product | Virtual Account Wallet | Spring by Citi |
| Coinbase product | Coinbase Virtual Accounts | Coinbase Payments |
| Conversion | Fiat into stablecoins | Stablecoins into fiat |
| Citi’s role | Banking infrastructure | Bank of record |
| Launch | US first, no date | US first, no date |
An October 2025 pact turns into products
The two firms first announced their intention to collaborate on October 27, 2025, starting with fiat pay-ins and pay-outs for Coinbase’s on- and off-ramps. The new release quotes Khaliq calling the partnership “a pivotal step in our ongoing Services strategy to provide optionality for our clients,” and says both companies will work on additional capabilities in the coming months.
Fintechs commonly rely on sponsor banks for such arrangements, Ledger Insights noted, but those are often specialty banks, “rather than a systemically important bank like Citi.” “Citi is exactly the kind of regulated banking partner the digital asset economy needs to move from experimentation to everyday commerce,” said Brett Tejpaul, head of Coinbase Institutional.
The same day, Citi said Citi Token Services, its tokenized deposit service, is now live in Japan for dollar transactions and in the United Arab Emirates for dollars and euros, bringing it to seven markets. American Banker tied both moves to what Fraser called “trapped liquidity” in her Sibos keynote. “Over 70% of the pain points that we’re hearing from clients is coming from that release of liquidity,” she said.