Yellow Card raises $40 million to connect banks to stablecoin payments
The Africa-focused fintech says commercial banks are becoming a faster-growing part of its business as it builds infrastructure for dollar and local-currency settlement.
Yellow Card has raised $40 million in strategic equity funding as the Africa-focused fintech shifts its attention toward banks and other institutions that want to use stablecoins for cross-border settlement. The round brings the company's total equity financing above $120 million, with SC Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, Polychain Capital and Blockchain Capital among the investors.
Chief executive Chris Maurice said the company is working with commercial banks globally to move dollars onchain and compete with parts of the correspondent-banking system. “Payments flow directly between banks onchain,” he wrote in a message described by CoinDesk's report.
From exchange access to bank infrastructure
Yellow Card's Global USD Accounts product lets businesses hold dollars, swap between stablecoins and access local currencies through domestic payment rails in more than 50 countries. The company has been moving toward a business-to-business model since announcing a sharper focus on stablecoin infrastructure last year.
Historically, Maurice said, customer flows were split roughly evenly between corporates and large financial institutions. Bank volumes are now growing faster. That change gives Yellow Card a different commercial problem: its value depends less on attracting individual traders and more on integrating with regulated institutions that need predictable settlement, compliance controls and local payout coverage.
The infrastructure race
The funding arrives as banks, payment companies and stablecoin issuers compete to own the layer between digital dollars and domestic money. For customers, the attraction is speed and access to dollar liquidity; for banks, the challenge is connecting onchain transfers to existing account, compliance and treasury systems.
Yellow Card's valuation was described as above its 2022 level of more than $200 million but below $1 billion by a person close to the matter. The company did not confirm a valuation. The next proof point will be usage from banks: recurring transaction flows, more local rails and the ability to turn a stablecoin account into a dependable piece of payment operations.
