Citigroup has expanded its Coinbase relationship so large corporate clients can take stablecoin payments at checkout.
According to the official announcement by Coinbase, Citi will keep the client relationship and Coinbase will supply the digital rails that move and convert the tokens. The service is aimed at Citi’s institutional customers, including large multinational companies. Those firms will be able to accept customer stablecoin payments through Citi’s merchant-processing services.
As per the report by Wall Street Journal (WSJ), it draws a line between bitcoin and dollar-pegged tokens. Bitcoin has not become a common tool for everyday payments. Stablecoins, designed to represent traditional currencies such as the U.S. dollar, are the instrument being placed into a corporate checkout flow.
The latest report is not the first Citi-Coinbase payments announcement. In October 2025, the two firms issued a joint statement saying they would collaborate on digital-asset payment capabilities for Citi institutional clients. That notice said the first phase would focus on fiat pay-ins and pay-outs, payments orchestration, and Coinbase on- and off-ramps.
Details on later initiatives, including the exploration of fiat-to-onchain stablecoin payout methods, were to come in subsequent months.
Coinbase described the same effort as work to help Citi clients use digital assets and stablecoins to move value. Today’s Journal account describes a more specific product: corporate acceptance at checkout, conversion into fiat, and settlement inside Citi.
How the checkout and account flow is built
As per the report, the partnership is meant to work in two directions. Citi clients can take stablecoins from customers without building their own crypto stack. Coinbase payments customers, both individual and institutional, will be able to use Citi’s banking tools to accept, hold, and pay funds through a bank-account-like vehicle. Incoming cash is automatically converted into dollar-pegged stablecoins held at Coinbase. Those tokens currently earn an interest-like reward of 3.75% a year.
Shahmir Khaliq, Citi’s head of services, said the partnership is intended to connect digital assets to parts of the economy that still rely on government-issued currency. “This is really part and parcel of completing that jigsaw puzzle,” he told the WSJ.
Brett Tejpaul, head of Coinbase Institutional, said the collaboration is designed so consumers and businesses can move between dollars and stablecoins without leaving the traditional banking system. He also said it is meant to help stablecoins support faster and cheaper payments across borders.
The WSJ did not publish a launch date, fee schedule, list of supported tokens, or expected volume. Those operational details remain outside the public record. What the report does establish is the division of labor: Coinbase runs the crypto rails and conversion; Citi remains the bank that processes the merchant payment and settles the funds.
Citi disclosed a separate expansion at the same time. The bank said it is widening its token services, which use Citi’s own blockchain so multinationals can move money across the bank’s network instantly and around the clock. The program will now be available in Japan and the United Arab Emirates and is live in seven jurisdictions, including the United States. That Japan rollout sits beside Citi’s other work on blockchain cross-border payments for corporate clients.
Bank projects continue after the Clarity Act stall
The announcement places the Coinbase agreement inside a broader set of Citi digital-asset projects. Banks have tested blockchain ledgers for years. Some of those tests are now moving closer to products. Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and other banks plan to launch a tokenized deposit system next year. Citi is also among nearly two dozen firms working toward a bank-linked dollar stablecoin. The bank has a venture that lets wealthy and institutional clients trade shares of private companies on a blockchain, and it has continued work on institutional Bitcoin custody.
The Coinbase partnership was reported after the Clarity Act failed to advance in the Senate. Supporters had argued the bill would have sped digital-asset adoption among banks and asset managers. One dispute that helped stall the measure was whether crypto platforms can offer interest-like rewards to stablecoin holders.
Khaliq said Citi is not waiting on that bill. “We are not hampered,” he said. “We’re continuing to do what we do within the banking license we have, within the regulations we currently have.”
That point matters for how the story should be read. The 2025 release was a plan to build ramps and study onchain payouts. The 2026 report describes a narrower service layered onto that work: Citi is using Coinbase so corporate clients can accept stablecoins at checkout, convert them to fiat, and settle inside the bank.
The partnership does not resolve the political fight over stablecoin rewards, and it does not merge Citi’s tokenized deposits or planned bank stablecoin work into the Coinbase rails. Those remain separate tracks.
Whether the checkout service becomes a meaningful payments channel will depend on merchant uptake, conversion costs, and how easily treasury teams can use the account-like vehicle.
Also read: BlackRock Says AI Agents Could Become Crypto’s Next Demand Engine
