Worldpay to offer merchants direct settlement in USDC

Payments infrastructure service Worldpay announced on Wednesday that it will offer merchants the ability to receive settlement directly in the stablecoin USDC. 

In partnership with Circle, the move will let both crypto-native and traditional businesses build stablecoin settlement into their offerings, Worldpay’s parent company FIS said in a release. Crypto.com will act as a pilot customer. 

For traditional merchants and other corporates, the ability to receive settlement in stablecoins can help drive adoption of digital assets by enabling them to experiment with cryptocurrency in a less volatile and lower-touch environment, FIS said. 

FIS processes over $2 trillion in transactions annually across more than 100 countries in numerous payment types and currencies.

Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and CEO of Circle, said the partnership is a “glimpse into a future where value is exchanged  frictionlessly.”

The move highlights a growing appetite for connections between fiat and crypto-native payment systems. Last year, Visa became the first major payments service to roll out settlement on Ethereum for USDC payments. 

Last week, MoonPay announced a partnership with OpenSea to enable users to buy NFTs with a credit card, having launched the plug-and-play service in January.