Circle and ACI Worldwide Announce Colombian USDC Settlement Pilot

ACI Worldwide (ACIW ) and Circle Internet (CRCL ) Group announced on October 27, 2026 a collaboration to demonstrate how stablecoin settlement can be integrated into existing banking and payment infrastructure, beginning with a Colombian pilot built around Bre-B, the country’s interoperable instant payments ecosystem.

The initiative leverages ACI Connetic, ACI’s cloud-native intelligent payments orchestration platform, and Circle’s USDC infrastructure to demonstrate how financial institutions can incorporate stablecoin settlement into existing payment operations, according to announcements published by Circle and ACI Worldwide. ACI characterized the effort as a Colombian pilot demonstrating how institutions can integrate USDC settlement into existing payment operations through ACI Connetic. ACI Connetic brings together traditional payment types, digital assets and card payments onto one unified cloud-native platform.

As Bre-B establishes the foundation for real-time, account-to-account payments nationwide, the companies said, the initiative explores how stablecoins such as USDC can further modernize Colombia’s payments landscape by complementing existing infrastructure and enabling a more connected, multi-rail ecosystem.

The companies said the collaboration demonstrates how stablecoin settlement can be orchestrated alongside traditional payment rails through a single platform, enabling institutions to evaluate new settlement models within familiar operating environments. As financial institutions increasingly evaluate stablecoins for payments and settlement use cases, they said, institutions need to understand how digital dollars can work alongside existing payment rails, treasury operations, governance frameworks, and settlement processes.

“The conversation around stablecoins is moving from possibility to practicality,” said Craig Ramsey, global head of account-to-account payments at ACI Worldwide. Ramsey said that through ACI Connetic, the company is demonstrating a practical approach to integrating regulated stablecoins into existing payment workflows.

Kash Razzaghi, chief commercial officer at Circle, said financial institutions across Latin America are increasingly looking at how stablecoins can support the evolution of payments and settlement within the infrastructure they already use. “By working with ACI Worldwide, we’re creating a practical path for institutions to explore how USDC can fit into established payment environments, helping bridge traditional financial infrastructure with the growing digital economy,” he said.

The companies said the initiative is designed to help financial institutions evaluate how stablecoin settlement can operate alongside existing payment infrastructure. While it leverages USDC and Circle’s infrastructure, they said, ACI Connetic supports an evolving ecosystem of payment networks, digital asset providers and future settlement models through a single orchestration platform. A footnote in ACI’s release states that USDC is issued by regulated affiliates of Circle.

Bre-B’s First Five Months

Bre-B is operated by Banco de la República, Colombia’s central bank, and powered by ACI Worldwide. Launched to modernize the country’s payment infrastructure and expand financial inclusion, the scheme enables instantaneous, interoperable transfers across all participating financial institutions, according to ACI.

ACI said in a March 19, 2026 announcement that Bre-B had processed more than 500 million transactions and registered over 100 million payment keys in its first five months. As Banco de la República’s technology partner, ACI provides the addressing directory, the 24/7 clearing and settlement engine, and the interoperability services underpinning the scheme, which is built on ACI’s Digital Central Infrastructure. The company has described Bre-B as a regional first: a nationally coordinated real-time payments scheme jointly developed by the central bank, regulators, commercial banks, and technology partners.

ACI was named the winner of Central Banking’s 2026 Financial Market Infrastructure Services – Retail award for the Bre-B implementation. The March announcement said that with domestic real-time payments firmly established, attention was turning to the cross-border dimension, particularly the high-volume corridor between the United States and Latin America, and to how domestic real-time schemes such as Bre-B can interoperate with global real-time networks.

The ACI Connetic Platform

ACI’s product documentation describes ACI Connetic as a unified, cloud-native payments hub covering account-to-account payments (real-time and instant payments, ACH and batch payments, RTGS and wires, and cross-border transfers) alongside card issuing, merchant acquiring, and ATM transaction support. The platform includes AI-powered fraud prevention and supports financial messaging standards natively on a single-platform architecture, according to the documentation. ACI offers three deployment models for the platform: customer managed, in which the software runs on premise or in the customer’s own cloud; a managed service; and software as a service.