Circle is expanding its Latin American payments push through a collaboration with ACI Worldwide that will integrate USDC settlement into existing banking infrastructure, beginning with a pilot in Colombia.
The companies announced Tuesday that the effort pairs Circle’s USDC infrastructure with ACI Connetic, ACI’s cloud-based payments orchestration platform. The aim is to show financial institutions how stablecoin settlement can operate alongside traditional payment systems rather than replace them.
Colombia pilot
Colombia is the initial focus. ACI built the central infrastructure behind Bre-B, the country’s interoperable instant-payments network. The pilot is intended to test how a digital dollar such as USDC can fit into that real-time, account-to-account system and help create what the companies describe as a multi-rail ecosystem.
The approach reflects a shift in how banks are assessing stablecoins, according to the companies. Rather than debating the technology itself, institutions are increasingly focused on how digital dollars fit into treasury operations, governance and settlement processes they already run.
“The conversation around stablecoins is moving from possibility to practicality,” said Craig Ramsey, ACI’s global head of account-to-account payments. He described the effort as a way to integrate regulated stablecoins into workflows banks already trust.
Kash Razzaghi, Circle’s chief commercial officer, said financial institutions across Latin America are increasingly examining how stablecoins can support the evolution of payments “within the infrastructure they already use.” He framed USDC as a bridge between traditional finance and the digital economy.
Regional expansion
The collaboration builds on Circle’s regional expansion. The company has pushed into dozens of emerging markets as stablecoins go mainstream and earlier gained a Latin American foothold when Argentina’s Mercado Pago added USDC.
Colombia is a logical next target, given high cross-border remittance volumes and a population well-acquainted with dollar-denominated savings as a hedge against inflation, according to the companies.
Circle positioned the pilot as technology-agnostic. While it runs on USDC, ACI’s platform is built to support other payment networks and digital-asset providers over time. For Circle, the deal is another step in weaving its stablecoin into the plumbing of mainstream finance, this time in a fast-growing payments market where instant-payment adoption is already accelerating.
