Circle is reportedly acquiring Singapore-based payments company Tazapay for $400 million, a move that would deepen the USDC issuer’s reach in cross-border payments and give it local market infrastructure across more than 100 jurisdictions. CoinDesk, citing the deal as an exclusive, said the transaction would bring Tazapay’s local payment rails, banking relationships and payment licenses into Circle’s system in one step, assets the report said could take years to build from scratch.
Tazapay is headquartered in Singapore and operates payment coverage spanning more than 100 markets. Its bank and fintech partnerships extend across Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Irfan Ganchi, Circle’s senior vice president for payments, said in an interview with foreign media that Asia-Pacific is a major source of stablecoin demand, and that Tazapay’s presence there carries clear geographic and strategic value.
The stablecoin fight is shifting toward emerging markets
The report said global stablecoin circulation has now surpassed $300 billion. As governments continue to put regulatory frameworks in place, stablecoins are increasingly being used for cross-border movement of funds. USDC, with circulation of about $74 billion, ranks second among stablecoins and already has deep roots in developed Western markets. Its main rival, Tether’s USDT, has for years maintained a strong position in emerging markets, including parts of Asia and Latin America.
Martins Benkitis, co-founder and chief executive of Gravity Team, said emerging markets are the next battleground for stablecoins, and described Circle’s purchase of Tazapay as the latest sign of that shift. His liquidity firm focuses on emerging-market currencies and stablecoins, which he said gives it direct exposure to the competition playing out in those regions.
Closing the local execution gap
Circle Payments Network, or CPN, connects the financial institutions on the sending and receiving sides of a transaction and settles onchain. But the network itself does not hold the local licenses required in each market. Owen Lau, managing director at Clear Street, said Tazapay can handle regulated functions such as customer screening, collections and payouts. If the acquisition closes, he said, Circle would effectively gain control of the last-mile operator in that stack, a change that could help increase CPN volumes.
The report said the last mile in emerging markets is difficult because each country has its own currency, payment methods, compliance requirements and banking relationships. Benkitis described those networks as something that can only be built market by market and relationship by relationship. In that sense, Tazapay has already done part of the groundwork Circle needs.
More players are moving into stablecoin payments
The competitive field goes beyond Circle and Tether. The report said banks in the U.S. and Europe are developing their own tokens. It also pointed to the Open USD initiative, led by Stripe and backed by more than 100 participants including Visa, Mastercard and Coinbase, as another active push into stablecoin payments.
Circle is also broadening its product footprint beyond USDC issuance. The company is building out CPN for cross-border payments and Arc, a blockchain focused on stablecoin-based financial activity. The report added that in Asia, stablecoins are increasingly being discussed not just as payment tools but as infrastructure for enterprise money movement. In Taiwan, regulators have opened discussion around bank-issued stablecoins, and BitoPro and O-Bank have launched what the report described as the island’s first pilot for enterprise-grade stablecoin settlement.
Taken on its own terms, the reported Tazapay acquisition represents a bid by Circle to buy local payment infrastructure rather than build it piece by piece, bringing USDC into more direct competition with USDT in emerging markets.