Singapore-based fintech Nium has announced a strategic partnership with Coinbase to integrate USDC stablecoin payments into its global network, enabling businesses to facilitate cross-border transactions in over 190 countries. This collaboration aims to enhance capital efficiency and accelerate settlement times by allowing customers to fund payouts in USDC and settle in either stablecoins or local fiat currencies. The integration is now live, with Coinbase providing the essential infrastructure for custody, liquidity, and wallet services.
The partnership addresses a critical pain point in traditional cross-border payment systems, which often require companies to prefund accounts across multiple jurisdictions, tying up significant capital. Nium's Vice President of Treasury, Santhosh Srinivasan, explained that the new integration allows clients to fund accounts on demand using USDC, convert to fiat in a single managed flow, and send payouts globally, eliminating idle capital. Nium CEO Prajit Nanu emphasized that this move makes the future of "fiat and onchain infrastructure working together" operational today.
Coinbase's role in the partnership involves providing the licensed custody and conversion infrastructure for digital assets, while Nium manages the fiat routing and payout through its extensive network. This clear separation ensures that Nium operates within its existing regulatory framework as a regulated payments infrastructure provider, not a digital asset custodian. The arrangement allows Nium's clients to benefit from stablecoin-denominated flows without directly holding digital assets.
The integration is a significant step in Nium's broader strategy to build comprehensive stablecoin infrastructure, which also includes a recently launched platform for issuing stablecoin-funded cards on Visa and Mastercard networks. USD Coin (USDC), co-founded by Circle and Coinbase, is the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, currently around $78 billion, and is pegged 1:1 to the US dollar with reserves backed by cash and short-term US Treasury holdings. This partnership underscores the growing institutional adoption of stablecoins as a core component of the global payments stack.
