Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, has agreed to buy Singapore-based cross-border payments firm Tazapay for $400 million in stock, its largest acquisition since it bought crypto exchange Poloniex in 2018. The deal, disclosed in a securities filing on September 8, is expected to close in 2027 pending approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Tazapay runs business-to-business payment infrastructure that connects payment companies and financial institutions to more than 60 banking and fintech partners. Its network lets customers collect and pay out money through local rails in over 100 markets. The company processes more than $25 billion in annualized payment volume, and Circle says roughly 60% of that already involves stablecoins.
Why the deal matters
USDC can move money on a blockchain, but a digital dollar is only useful to a business if it can be turned into local currency and delivered through a domestic bank account. Tazapay supplies that last mile. It gives Circle the ability to originate and terminate payments in the markets where cross-border volume is growing fastest.
Irfan Ganchi, Circle’s senior vice president of payments, wrote in a LinkedIn post that demand for cross-border payments is rising quickest across APAC, Southeast Asia and emerging markets. He said the acquisition moves Circle closer to a world where USDC becomes the default rail for global commerce.
“Stablecoin settlement is becoming core infrastructure in the global economy,” said Jeremy Allaire, Circle’s co-founder, CEO and chairman.
Deal terms
Circle will pay with Class A common stock. The share count will be set using the volume-weighted average closing price over the 20 trading days before the deal closes, with adjustments for Tazapay’s debt, cash and transaction expenses, according to the filing.
Investors were not immediately sold on the price. Circle shares fell about 2.7% to $99.30 in trading after the announcement.
Tazapay said in March that it served more than 1,000 companies and fintechs across 30 countries and had doubled revenue for three consecutive years. That funding update came alongside a Series B extension led by Circle Ventures, so the two companies already had a working relationship before this deal. Circle’s venture arm was also an early backer, which means the acquisition is less a leap into the unknown and more a full purchase of a partner Circle already knew well.
A consolidation pattern in stablecoins
The purchase fits a wider push by payment companies to build out stablecoin rails. Visa said this week that its stablecoin settlement volume has passed a $20 billion annualized run rate, up 15 times year over year. Visa also disclosed that more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs now run on its network, with payment volume on those programs up nearly 200% year over year.
Coinbase, Stripe and other large firms have also been building or buying stablecoin payment infrastructure over the past year. The pattern is consistent: the technology for moving dollars on a blockchain works, so competition is shifting to who owns the regulated connections at both ends of a payment.
For Circle, the bet is that regulation cuts both ways. The GENIUS Act gave dollar-backed stablecoins a federal framework, which makes banks and payment firms more comfortable settling in USDC. But the same framework raises the bar for who can actually move money in and out of local banking systems. Owning those connections, with the licenses and compliance teams behind them, is the logical next step, and buying them is faster than building them one market at a time.
What happens next
The deal still needs to clear regulatory review in Singapore, and Circle has not given a more precise closing date than sometime in 2027. If it closes on schedule, Circle will inherit a payments network with regulated licenses, bank relationships across Asia and a customer base that already moves stablecoins at scale.
The open question is whether Circle can hold Tazapay’s customers through the transition. Acquisition announcements in crypto have a mixed record on that front, and Tazapay’s clients include fintechs that could just as easily sign with a rival. Circle is betting that owning the rails end to end, from USDC issuance to local payout, is worth the integration risk.
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