Circle Payments Network is a product of its community, and the network has been shaped by mutually beneficial long-term partnerships.
The promise of cross-border, internet-speed money movement is no longer an aspiration; it’s operational reality. But the story of how that reality came about is more than one of blockchain integrations and advances. It’s a story of long-term partnerships and shared progress.
Circle Payments Network1 (CPN) connects financial institutions to global blockchain rails. It lets them transfer value with stablecoins like USDC and EURC nearly instantly, 24/7/365, without weekend cutoffs or intermediary banks, and pay out in local fiat. Partner institutions can choose from integrated blockchains that best fit their technical needs, while CPN’s compliance-first design helps facilitate payments that are secure, transparent, and aligned with global standards.
CPN is marked by its win-win design for partners: the more that join, the more benefit each gains. Partners integrate once and can then interoperate with every other participant, compressing the cost and complexity of launching new payment corridors. That network effect is why banks, payment service providers (PSPs), remittance firms, and virtual-asset service providers (VASPs) are onboarding: they gain global reach, and they get it on Day 1.
It was many of those same partners who helped shape CPN long before its official May 2025 launch. Companies like Alfred2, HIFI, and Conduit benefited from Circle Developer Grants, Circle Alliance Program, and Circle Ventures, respectively. Now, they’re extending CPN’s reach into Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and beyond — demonstrating that CPN and its partners grow together.
From Circle Grantee to Continental Scale
Alfred is a crypto-first payments company seeking to reimagine the way value is transferred across borders and modernize payments in Latin America.
Now fully integrated into CPN, Alfred started out as a Circle Grant awardee. That seed of capital and technical mentorship provided a vital boost for the Miami-based fintech. Alfred was able to build a single API that bridged local banking systems with USDC settlement, giving marketplaces and PSPs a way to disburse funds in minutes, not days.
Because Alfred piloted its rails with grant support from Circle, it was able to prove product-market fit long before courting institutional clients. By the time CPN opened for early access, Alfred had already stress-tested smart contracts and expanded into Mexico and Brazil. Integration into CPN boosted Alfred’s reach: banks on the network could now route USDC into a Latin American bank account via Alfred.
Partnerships Unlocking New Markets and Demand
HIFI, a stablecoin-infrastructure company building API payments platforms, joined the Circle Alliance Program (CAP) seeking like-minded peers and potential partners. Its listing in the CAP directory put HIFI’s name in front of hundreds of institutions, gaining the company valuable exposure. But that was just the start.
As an early CPN partner, HIFI provided valuable feedback that helped shape corridor enablement, compliance tools, and user experience across the network. Now, HIFI’s API suite supports seamless integration across CPN corridors, powering remittance and treasury flows with real-time visibility and programmable settlement. It enables businesses to embed stablecoin-powered payments — unlocking fast and programmable flows for everyday transactions.
In the future HIFI envisions — where every company is stablecoin native — this type of infrastructure isn’t just important, it’s inevitable. And partnerships, like those HIFI found through CAP and CPN, are key to getting there.
Early Capital Shaping Global Corridors
The Conduit team set out to rebuild cross-border payouts from first principles, fully embracing stablecoins and onchain FX. Circle was naturally onboard.
As an early CPN partner, Conduit helped validate multi-corridor routing flows. Building on that relationship, in May 2025 Conduit closed a $36 million Series A with participation from Circle Ventures. According to Conduit, that funding will help the company launch in 5 countries across Asia. And because CPN orchestrates onchain settlement and partner discovery, Conduit can stand up new corridors in days — dramatically faster than under traditional models.
Importantly, Conduit’s success creates value for other CPN partners. In the future, if Conduit were to open a new corridor in Asia, it could become available to companies like Alfred to tap for Latin American merchants shipping goods to Asia-Pacific. The network becomes richer with each incremental participant.
When A Patchwork Becomes a Network
Grants nurtured Alfred. CAP and CPN amplified HIFI. Ventures empowered Conduit. All three companies now operate on overlapping platform primitives supercharged by CPN. That convergence is no accident; Circle works to grow 1:1 relationships into a broader ecosystem where every success compounds.
As stablecoin adoption accelerates — USDC in circulation has surpassed $61 billion3 — the demand for reliable cross-border settlement will only intensify. CPN stands ready as the connective layer. And with the help of its community of partners, CPN turns a patchwork of corridors and markets into a single network that’s open yet compliant, programmable yet predictable.
For Alfred, HIFI, Conduit, and the dozens more partners already in flight, that network is not abstract architecture; it is daily throughput, client wins, and revenue growth. Partner journeys prove that when Circle pairs capital with community and code, the result is compounding value for everyone plugged in. With CPN, companies can integrate once, reach nearly anywhere, and grow alongside a network designed for shared progress. Because in the new internet of money, growth isn’t zero-sum — it’s exponential.
1 Circle Technology Services, LLC (CTS) is the operator of Circle Payments Network (CPN) and offers products and services to financial institutions that participate in CPN to facilitate their CPN access and integration. CPN connects participating financial institutions around the world, with CTS serving as the technology service provider to participating financial institutions. While CTS does not hold funds or manage accounts on behalf of customers, we enable the global ecosystem of participating financial institutions to connect directly with each other, communicate securely, and settle directly with each other. CTS is not a party to transactions between participating financial institutions facilitated by CPN who use CPN to execute transactions at their own risk. Use of CPN is subject to the CPN Rules and the CPN Participation Agreement between CTS and a participating financial institution.
2 Circle Ventures is an investor in Alfred, and is an Alfred board participant.
3 USDC circulation as of Jun 17, 2025
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