Stripe to help companies to launch their own stablecoins, reportedly apply for federal banking charter

Payments giant Stripe said Tuesday it's going to make it possible for any business to launch their own stablecoin.

The new product, called Open Issuance, "enables any business to launch and manage their own stablecoin with just a few lines of code," Stripe said in a statement. The new service will be powered by Bridge, which the payments company bought last year for $1.1 billion.

"Businesses can mint and burn coins freely, and customize their reserves to manage the ratio between cash and treasuries and choose their preferred partners," Stripe said. "Treasuries are managed by BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, and Superstate. Cash is held by Lead Bank to provide liquidity as necessary."

Stripe will apply for a federal banking charter in order to meet U.S. stablecoin guidelines, The Information reported on Tuesday. The company also plans to apply for a trust license with the New York State Department of Financial Services, the report said.

Stablecoins are, by many accounts, on the verge of explosive growth with predictions that the total market will swell to trillions of dollars in the coming years. Currently, Tether is the world's largest issuer with $175 billion USD-pegged USDT tokens.

Stripe is keen to carve out market share and operate more across digital assets. In May, Stripe launched a new money management feature using U.S. dollar stablecoins, which allows businesses in 101 countries to hold balances in dollar-backed stablecoins, receive funds on both crypto and fiat rails, and send the tokens globally. Then in June, Stripe bought the crypto wallet firm Privy.

"If money movement is core to your business, you should build with stablecoins. But don't build on top of someone else's coin,” said Bridge co-founder and CEO Zach Abrams in Tuesday's statement. "With Open Issuance, businesses can build on top of stablecoins that they customize and control, so that the benefits of this important technology flow directly to the people and businesses using them."

Stripe said all coins issued using Open Issuance will be fully interoperable with one another.