Circle is extending its reach across Latin America, teaming with payments-technology firm ACI Worldwide to fold USDC settlement into the region's existing banking infrastructure, starting with a pilot in Colombia built on ACI's Bre-B instant-payments system.

Announced Tuesday, the collaboration pairs Circle's USDC infrastructure with ACI Connetic, ACI's cloud-based payments orchestration platform. The goal is to demonstrate to financial institutions how stablecoin settlement can run alongside traditional payment systems rather than replace them.

A Multi-Rail Pilot in Colombia

The initial focus is Colombia, where ACI built the central infrastructure behind Bre-B, the country's interoperable instant-payments network. The pilot will test how a digital dollar such as USDC can slot into that real-time, account-to-account system, creating what the companies describe as a multi-rail ecosystem in which stablecoin and conventional payments operate side by side.

Circle positioned the pilot as technology-agnostic: while the first implementation runs on USDC, ACI's Connetic platform is built to support other payment networks and digital-asset providers over time.

Banks Shift From Possibility to Practicality

Stablecoins such as USDC are blockchain-based tokens pegged to the US dollar, built to move value around the clock without the cut-off times and correspondent-bank chains that can stretch traditional cross-border settlement across several days. That difference is a large part of why payments-infrastructure firms see a role for digital dollars inside the systems banks already operate.

The framing reflects a shift in how banks are approaching stablecoins. Rather than debating the technology itself, institutions increasingly want to know how digital dollars fit into the 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, describing 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 looking at how stablecoins can support the evolution of payments "within the infrastructure they already use," framing USDC as a bridge between traditional finance and the digital economy.

Building on Regional Expansion

The move builds on Circle's steady regional expansion. The stablecoin issuer has pushed into dozens of emerging markets as stablecoins go mainstream, and it earlier gained a Latin American foothold when Argentina's Mercado Pago, one of Latin America's largest payment platforms, added USDC for users of its services.

Colombia is a logical next target, given its high cross-border remittance volumes and a population well-acquainted with dollar-denominated savings as a hedge against inflation. It is also a market where settlement speed carries outsized weight: remittances routed through correspondent-banking networks can pass through multiple intermediaries and take several days to arrive, a friction profile that has made faster settlement a recurring pitch for stablecoin issuers across emerging markets.

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. It also reflects a broader pattern in which stablecoin issuers pursue integrations with regulated institutions rather than working around them.

The signal to watch next is whether the Colombia pilot graduates from demonstration to production use by local banks, and whether the multi-rail model extends to other markets where ACI supplies payment infrastructure. For now, it remains a proof of concept — its move from pilot testing into production would be the clearest test yet of the multi-rail idea the two companies are promoting.

Source: Decrypt