Finastra and Circle Forge Strategic Collaboration to Bring Stablecoin Settlement to Cross-Border Payments

Finastra, a global leader in financial services software, today announced a strategic collaboration with a subsidiary of Circle Internet Group, Inc. (NYSE: CRCL) (“Circle”), a global financial technology firm and stablecoin market leader, to enable banks to integrate USDC settlement into cross-border payment flows.

The collaboration will leverage Finastra’s payment hub solutions, including Global PAYplus (GPP), as the first Finastra solution to connect financial institutions to Circle’s payment infrastructure, offering rapid, cost-effective international transfers.

USDC is a regulated, fully-reserved stablecoin, designed to maintain a stable value that provides transparency for near-instant settlement. Finastra will connect its GPP customers – processing over $5 trillion in cross-border transactions daily – to Circle’s infrastructure, enabling settlement in USDC even when payment instructions on both sides remain in fiat currency. This innovation provides banks the optionality to reduce reliance on traditional correspondent banking chains, accelerating settlement times while maintaining compliance and FX processes.

“This collaboration is about giving banks the tools they need to innovate in cross-border payments without having to build a standalone payment processing infrastructure,” said Chris Walters, CEO of Finastra. “By connecting Finastra’s payment hub to Circle’s stablecoin infrastructure, we can help our clients access innovative settlement options.”

“Finastra’s reach and expertise in powering the payments infrastructure for leading banks worldwide makes them a natural choice to further expand USDC settlement in cross-border flows,” said Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Circle. “Together, we’re enabling financial institutions to test and launch innovative payment models that combine blockchain technology with the scale and trust of the existing banking system.”