Circle Internet Group is set to buy cross-border payments infrastructure firm Tazapay for $400 million in stock, according to a Tuesday regulatory filing.
Buying Singapore-based Tazapay brings over $25 billion in annualized payment volume to the stablecoin issuer along with more than 60 banking and fintech partners and payment rails covering over 100 markets – roughly 60% of which already includes stablecoins, said Circle, which issues the USDC stablecoin, in a press announcement.
“Stablecoin settlement is becoming core infrastructure in the global economy, and combining USDC with Tazapay’s world-class banking relationships, local payout rails, and institutional customer base will accelerate worldwide USDC adoption,” said Jeremy Allaire, Circle’s co-founder and CEO.
Tazapay and Circle first forged a partnership last year, and according to Allaire, “share a deep alignment.” Circle was the lead investor in Tazapay’s Series B funding last year.
The deal is expected to close in 2027, subject to closing conditions and regulatory approvals. It must obtain approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Bringing Tazapay into Circle’s folds “extends our coverage to move money anywhere stablecoin payments are being adopted globally,” said Irfan Ganchi, Circle’s senior vice president of payments in a prepared statement.
This transaction “combines infrastructure that has never been combined at scale,” according to a blog post by Tazapay co-founder Rahul Shinghal. “Regulated stablecoin issuance, a global financial platform built for internet speed, and compliant fiat-stablecoin bridging infrastructure anchored in the markets that matter most.”
Buying Tazapay is one of Circle’s largest-ever transactions, and comes just two months after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gave an unconditional green light to the firm’s national trust charter.
Allaire at the time said the charter development “marks a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the U.S. financial system.”
Weeks after nabbing its full charter, Circle acquired a massive blockchain patent portfolio from IBM, composed of more than 680 patent families and nearly 1,000 issued patents worldwide.
Tazapay’s role as a Circle Payments Network design partner “suggested relatively limited integration risk,” TD Cowen analysts Bryan Bergin and David Duka said in a note to investors. The deal could “streamline integration across CPN and provide [Circle] with greater influence over how those capabilities are deployed as USDC adoption scales,” they said.
