PNC Bank Rolls Out USDC Stablecoin Payments for Corporate Clients in Expanded Coinbase Tie-Up
PNC Bank Rolls Out USDC Stablecoin Payments for Corporate Clients in Expanded Coinbase Tie-Up #
PNC Bank has announced a pilot programme enabling its Corporate & Institutional Banking clients to receive payments in USDC, the U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, expanding an existing relationship with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
Under the arrangement, corporate clients can receive USDC payments on the Ethereum blockchain via Coinbase’s payments application programming interface, which connects to PNC’s treasury management and corporate banking systems. Incoming USDC balances are automatically converted on a one-to-one basis into U.S. dollars and deposited into a designated PNC deposit account, meaning clients do not need to hold or manage digital assets themselves.
The Pittsburgh-based bank is rolling the service out on a limited basis to eligible clients as it assesses demand. Tom Lang, PNC’s head of treasury management product and operations, described the launch as an exploratory exercise. “Right now, this is about testing and learning with our clients and helping explore which of those potential features of the stablecoin are a benefit,” he said, according to Reuters.
PNC said the capability is designed to complement its existing faster-payments infrastructure by giving businesses quicker access to funds and improving the speed of cross-border transactions, areas where stablecoins can offer near-instant settlement compared with traditional correspondent banking rails.
For Coinbase, the PNC deal is part of its effort to embed its payments infrastructure across established financial institutions. Alec Lovett, head of infrastructure products at Coinbase, said the partnership illustrates “how leading banks and trusted digital asset infrastructure come together to let corporate clients take advantage of this technology.” The company is simultaneously working with payments technology firm Moov to extend stablecoin payment infrastructure to other U.S. financial institutions.
PNC joins other traditional lenders that have begun testing stablecoin-based business payments and treasury management, as regulated dollar-pegged tokens see wider use in wholesale and cross-border commerce.
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