Coastal, one of the leading banking-as-a-service platforms in the US, is building stablecoin-settled cross-border payment infrastructure on Tempo for its fintech clients. Learn more in the full case study →
Cross-border payments remain one of the most friction-heavy workflows in financial services. Transfers route through multiple correspondent banks, take days to settle, require pre-funded accounts, and operate only during banking hours. For banks that power fintech products at scale, those limitations get passed directly to their partners and end customers.
Coastal Financial Corporation (Nasdaq: CCB) is building the infrastructure to change that. Through its CCBX division, Coastal provides card sponsorship, lending, deposit, and digital financial service infrastructure to fintech companies nationwide, with approximately $4.7 billion in total assets. Now, Coastal is extending that platform with stablecoin-settled cross-border payments built on Tempo.
Coastal and Tempo
Coastal and Tempo are building a cross-border payment corridor that keeps existing compliance infrastructure intact while replacing the settlement layer with stablecoins on Tempo. Messaging, KYC/AML screening, and bank-to-bank confirmations stay in place. What changes is how the value moves: instead of routing through correspondent banks over several days, funds settle on Tempo in minutes using USD stablecoins, at a fraction of the cost.
Both sides of each transaction are known, regulated financial institutions with an existing relationship. Wallets are whitelisted. The flow is permissioned end-to-end. This is the kind of implementation that lets a bank adopt stablecoin settlement without rebuilding its compliance stack.
Our partners are continually raising the bar for what modern financial services should look like: faster, more flexible, and always available. By integrating stablecoin capabilities and Tempo’s blockchain-based infrastructure into our platform, we’re enabling our partners to build more seamless, efficient experiences for their customers while staying grounded in the trust and reliability of the banking system.
— Brian Hamilton, President of CCBX at Coastal
Why Tempo
Tempo is purpose-built for institutional payments. For a use case like cross-border settlement between regulated banks, several capabilities made the difference.
Tempo Zones provide private stablecoin payments where only the zone operator and parties to a transaction see the details, with selective disclosure to regulators. Institutions get confidentiality without giving up access to shared liquidity across the network or the ability to meet their compliance obligations.
Dollar-denominated fees mean institutions pay transaction costs in stablecoins rather than a volatile native token, keeping operational budgets predictable and avoiding uncertain capital treatment.
Protocol-level compliance controls, including allowlists, blocklists, and freeze-and-pause capabilities, are built directly into the chain. Native memo fields support structured payment data compatible with ISO 20022, the messaging standard used across global institutional payments.
What was particularly interesting about Tempo was here’s a partner focused on a payments-first use case and focused on how we can enable the next generation of money movement. Faster payments, more efficient payments, and safer and more secure payments.
— Ryan Hall, Chief Product Officer at Coastal
What this means
Cross-border payments are Coastal’s starting point on Tempo, not the ceiling. The infrastructure the bank is building, combining institutional messaging, compliance-native controls, and stablecoin settlement, is a foundation for any payment corridor that needs to move faster and cost less. Coastal is also exploring a broader digital asset strategy that includes support for corporate accounts, wallet funding, treasury management, and interoperability with fiat rails.
For the broader market, a publicly traded, regulated US bank building stablecoin settlement infrastructure signals where institutional adoption is heading. The question for most banks is no longer whether stablecoins will play a role in payments, but how to get started safely.
