Circle Internet Group, Inc., a global financial technology company and stablecoin market participant, today announced Circle Payments Network to connect financial institutions – banks, neo-banks, payment service providers, virtual asset service providers and digital wallets – and enable real-time settlement of cross-border payments using regulated stablecoins.
Despite improvements, cross-border payments can still take longer than one business day to settle and cost more than 6%, according to the World Bank, disproportionately impacting emerging markets and limiting their global competitiveness. Delays are driven by multiple intermediaries, compliance checks, local market cut-off times, and fragmented operating hours across jurisdictions.
Circle Payments Network requires participants to meet strict eligibility standards, including licensing, AML/CFT compliance, financial risk management, and cybersecurity protocols. By leveraging USDC, EURC, and other regulated stablecoins, Cicle Payments Network enables connectivity to domestic real-time payment systems worldwide, while upholding the compliance, security, and trust required for financial institutions to meet their regulatory obligations.
The network will enable such cross-border money movement use cases for businesses, financial institutions, and individuals as supplier payments, remittances, payroll, capital markets settlement, internal treasury operations, and on-chain financial applications. Powered by smart contract infrastructure and modular APIs, the network enables third-party developers to build advanced modules, app services, and automated financial workflows directly on top of the network.
“Since our founding, Circle’s vision has been to make moving money as simple and efficient as sending an email,” said Jeremy Allaire, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Circle. “CPN is a significant step in making that vision a reality for businesses worldwide.”
Banco Santander, Deutsche Bank, Société Générale, and Standard Chartered Bank are helping Circle in designing the network.
“Standard Chartered is continuously looking for opportunities to make cross-border payments more efficient, secure, and compliant to various regulatory requirements, globally,” said Michael Spiegel, global head of Transaction Banking at Standard Chartered Bank. “Circle’s compliance-first approach to building products like CPN is a game changer for how money moves across borders, and we are pleased to build on our partnership and offer them our global expertise to support the success of CPN.”
In collaboration with global design partners, Circle Payment Network will enable 24/7 real-time settlement using stablecoins. Design partners include Alfred Pay, BCB Group, BVNK, CoinMENA, Coins.ph, Conduit, dLocal, dtcpay, Flutterwave, FOMO Pay, HIFI, Inswitch, Legend Trading, Nilos, Noah, Nuvei, Onafriq, OpenPayd, RD Technologies, RedotPay, TazaPay, Transfero Group, Triple-A, Trubit, Unlimit, Yellow Card, Zepz, and Zodia Markets.
“Circle Payments Network is a foundational layer for the always-on economy — enabling trusted institutions to move value across borders, instantly,” said Nikhil Chandhok, chief product and technology officer at Circle. “With programmable infrastructure at its core, CPN makes it possible to embed value transfer into modern financial applications in ways that weren’t feasible before.”