Coinbase Taps Citi to Power Virtual Accounts and Stablecoin Acceptance

Coinbase announced on September 28, 2026 that it is expanding what businesses can build on its payments infrastructure through a deepened collaboration with Citi. Under the arrangement, Coinbase selected Citi’s Virtual Account Wallet, part of the bank’s Banking-as-a-Service offering, to power Coinbase Virtual Accounts, a product whose fiat wallets automatically convert incoming fiat into stablecoins. In a second leg of the collaboration, Coinbase’s payments infrastructure now enables Citi’s institutional clients to accept stablecoin payments through Spring by Citi.

Coinbase framed the arrangement as an answer to a practical problem: businesses that want to move between fiat and stablecoins at scale usually must stitch together separate banking and digital asset systems while carrying the operational and regulatory weight of both. The company said pairing its payments infrastructure with Citi’s regulated banking rails gives businesses building on Coinbase a single, direct path between traditional finance and digital assets, without standing up either stack themselves.

Coinbase Virtual Accounts, Powered by Citi

Coinbase Virtual Accounts give payments customers bank-account-like functionality: the ability to accept, hold, and pay funds, with incoming fiat automatically converted into stablecoins. Underneath the product, Citi provides the regulated banking infrastructure, which Coinbase said lets the accounts operate at scale and connect to the global financial system.

Coinbase’s developer documentation details the product’s mechanics and current status. The underlying accounts, described in the documentation as fiat deposit destinations, are currently in private beta and require account enablement through a Coinbase representative; the documentation notes that fields and behavior may change before general availability. The destinations are provided in partnership with Citi, which the documentation describes as a global systemically important bank.

Issuing a fiat deposit destination for a customer-owned account provisions a virtual bank account at Citi, and the destination remains in a pending status until Citi completes provisioning; only then can it receive deposits. The accounts are issued for customers who have completed know-your-customer verification, with support for know-your-business customers listed as coming soon. A destination can be funded only by the customer holding it: the documentation states that the sender name must match the verified customer.

ACH and Fedwire are the publicly supported payment rails for the accounts. When a deposit arrives in U.S. dollars, the account is credited in USDC converted 1:1 from USD, per the documentation’s settlement flow. Customers can set the destination’s target to a Coinbase account or, alternatively, to an onchain address, in which case deposits forward automatically to that address as they settle, a configuration the documentation describes as useful for automated sweeps to a non-custodial address.

Stablecoin Acceptance Through Spring by Citi

The second capability extends Coinbase’s payments infrastructure to Spring by Citi, Citi’s payment acceptance platform for merchant acquiring, gateway technology, and settlement. Under this leg, Citi’s institutional clients can accept stablecoin payments at checkout without holding or managing stablecoins directly. Coinbase’s infrastructure automatically converts the digital currency into fiat, and Citi settles the funds as the bank of record. Coinbase said the capability runs on its existing payments engine, now reaching enterprise merchants through one of the world’s largest banks and serving a market of more than 150 million stablecoin holders worldwide.

Coinbase listed three capabilities clients can build on the combined infrastructure: branded virtual accounts that give end customers fiat accounts to accept, hold, and send funds backed by regulated banking infrastructure; automatic conversion of incoming fiat into stablecoins without manual conversion or a separate treasury workflow; and stablecoin acceptance under which merchants receive fiat settlement while their customers pay in the currency of their choice.

Alec Lovett, Head of Infrastructure Product at Coinbase, said fintechs building on Coinbase “have always needed a fast, compliant bridge between fiat and stablecoins, and Citi gives us that at scale.” Brett Tejpaul, Head of Coinbase Institutional, said the collaboration gives Coinbase customers bank-grade fiat infrastructure on one side and Citi’s institutional clients low-friction stablecoin acceptance on the other, without either side needing to build or manage a system it does not need. Debopama Sen, Head of Payments, Services at Citi, said the bank’s goal is “to build the next generation of payments infrastructure – one that is seamless, interoperable, and operates across both traditional and digital payments instruments and networks.”

Citi brings regulated banking capabilities and global reach across more than 180 countries and jurisdictions, according to the announcement. The initiatives will launch first in the United States, with additional capabilities to follow in the coming months.

The September 28 announcement extends a collaboration the two companies first disclosed on October 27, 2025, when Citi and Coinbase announced their intention to develop digital asset payment capabilities for Citi’s institutional clients. That initial phase focused on fiat pay-ins and pay-outs supporting Coinbase’s on-ramps and off-ramps, along with payments orchestration, and the companies said specific initiatives, including exploration of alternative fiat-to-onchain stablecoin payout methods, would be shared in the coming months. Citi’s 2025 release described its network as more than 300 payment clearing networks across 94 markets, pointed to Citi Token Services and 24/7 USD Clearing as existing real-time services for institutional clients, and stated that Citi banks 90% of the top eCommerce companies and 15 of the world’s 20 largest FinTechs. Coinbase said at the time the collaboration would combine its digital asset infrastructure with Citi’s global payments network, with a focus on improving on-ramps and off-ramps, payment solutions including stablecoins, and 24/7 availability.