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Fiserv debuts bank-friendly stablecoin as fintechs join digital dollar race

Fiserv debuts bank-friendly stablecoin as fintechs join digital dollar race

CNBC12 hours ago

Fiserv is making a big entrance into the stablecoin market.
The payments and fintech giant announced on Monday plans to roll out a new blockchain-based digital asset platform anchored by a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin called FIUSD — a product it hopes will bring thousands of banks and millions of merchants into the crypto economy by year's end.
The new offering is designed to plug directly into Fiserv's sprawling global network, which already processes 90 billion transactions a year across 10,000 financial institutions and 6 million merchant locations.
By baking stablecoin support into its existing banking and payment rails, Fiserv aims to fast-track adoption of blockchain-based money movement without requiring clients to overhaul infrastructure or pay extra fees.
FIUSD will initially launch using stablecoin infrastructure from Paxos and Circle — the latter of which is enjoying a stock market surge since its IPO last month.
Circle, the issuer of USD Coin, rose 6% on Monday to around $250 a share — more than 700% above its IPO price of $31 when it began trading on June 5.
"Fiserv is a global powerhouse in commerce, and Circle is a global fintech firm and stablecoin market leader," said Heath Tarbert, President at Circle. "Together, we will work to unlock the next frontier of money movement – embedding stablecoins into everyday commerce and making money move as easily, reliably, and instantly as sending an email."
The launch positions Fiserv as one of the first major payment infrastructure providers to offer stablecoin tools at scale, potentially transforming how banks and merchants settle transactions, send remittances, or offer 24/7 digital dollars to customers.
Fiserv's coin will also be compatible with the solana blockchain, a popular choice for stablecoin transactions thanks to its speed and low costs.
Fiserv said its long-term goal is to make FIUSD work seamlessly with other major stablecoins and eventually offer a version that helps banks move money more efficiently under existing regulations.
Executives said the offering is built to meet the needs of traditional financial institutions — not crypto-native startups.
"FIUSD is designed with our clients in mind, a financial institution-friendly coin that simplifies stablecoin access through a secure and scalable ecosystem," said Sunil Sachdev, head of embedded finance at Fiserv.
Features like fraud monitoring, risk controls, and settlement compliance are built-in from the start. Fiserv's cloud-native Finxact platform will serve as the underlying ledger.
The launch comes as Congress warms to stablecoins.
The Senate passed the Genius Act last week, advancing it to the House and signaling growing support for institutional use of tokenized dollars.

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