$40 billion payments giant Checkout.com starts accepting stablecoins in major crypto push

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AMSTERDAM — Online payments company Checkout.com says it will settle payments for its merchants round-the-clock using stablecoins, making it the last major financial services firm taking the plunge into crypto.

The start-up, which competes with the likes of PayPal and Stripe, said Tuesday it is launching a feature that allows businesses to accept and make payments in USD Coin, a popular stablecoin that's pegged to the U.S. dollar. Checkout.com said it is offering the new payment method through a partnership with Fireblocks, a crypto security firm.

Stablecoins are a key part of the crypto market, helping investors trade in and out of digital currencies rapidly without having to go through banks. With a circulating supply of more than $50 billion, USDC is the world's second-biggest stablecoin.

The feature will allow merchants to settle payments even on weekends and public holidays, something that's not currently possible with fiat currencies, according to Jess Houlgrave, Checkout.com's head of crypto strategy. She used the example of someone buying bitcoin from a crypto exchange. While the user can get their bitcoin straight away, how banks and card schemes like Visa and Mastercard operate means merchants may not receive the funds for several days.

«Between the time that they've sent the bitcoin, and the time that they receive those funds, they have a working capital constraint,» Houlgrave told CNBC on the sidelines of the Money 20/20 fintech conference in Amsterdam.

Checkout.com said it has tested the feature privately with select clients, facilitating $300 million in transaction volumes in the past few months. It now plans to roll the product out globally, with Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX among the