Decta Tests Stablecoin-Backed Treasury Settlement for Payments

Payments infrastructure provider Decta UK says it is bringing USDC into its internal treasury workflow for cross-border settlement—an integration that highlights how stablecoins are increasingly being used behind the scenes, not necessarily as a customer-facing payment option.

According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, Decta will route its own funds through OpenPayd, a regulated financial infrastructure provider, where the company converts fiat into USDC for international operational settlements.

Key takeaways

• Decta plans to use USDC as a settlement instrument for its own treasury movements via OpenPayd, rather than placing stablecoins in its customer payment flows.
• The firm described the rationale as improving the timing and flexibility of internal fund transfers compared with traditional banking rails, including weekend and cut-off constraints.
• OpenPayd will perform the fiat-to-USDC conversion using its over-the-counter capabilities inside a regulated infrastructure setup.
• The move fits a broader industry pattern: stablecoins being adopted for internal liquidity and settlement operations by payments and financial firms.

How Decta plans to use USDC

Decta said Tuesday it will use OpenPayd’s infrastructure to convert company funds into USDC for international settlement. OpenPayd’s role is described as “proprietary treasury use” rather than a customer-facing payments feature.

OpenPayd chief commercial officer Lux Thiagarajah told Cointelegraph that Decta transfers its own funds into OpenPayd’s regulated setup, where those funds are converted into USDC through OpenPayd’s over-the-counter capabilities to support international operational settlements.

From Decta’s perspective, the company framed the upgrade as a practical replacement for certain limitations of traditional banking. Decta UK CEO Scott Dawson said the business routinely shifts funds across banking relationships to fund operations and settle obligations between regulated entities and markets. He noted that these transfers typically face banking cut-off times, weekend closures, and multi-day value dates.

Dawson argued that using OpenPayd’s regulated infrastructure allows Decta to convert fiat into a digital settlement instrument and move value “near-instantly” across markets.

Stablecoins migrating from payments to treasury operations

While stablecoins have often been discussed primarily in the context of end-user payments, Decta’s approach underscores a different entry point: internal treasury management. By limiting USDC to its own operational settlement needs, Decta is effectively treating stablecoin settlement as infrastructure—something that can improve liquidity handling without requiring customers to transact with the asset directly.

This distinction matters for adoption. For payments firms, stablecoins can reduce friction when value must move quickly across borders or between affiliated entities, while still allowing the company to maintain a familiar customer experience built on existing rails. In Decta’s case, the company’s statements emphasize that stablecoins are not being introduced into customer-facing payment services, only into its back-end settlement workflow.

It also places stablecoin use closer to how other treasury tools are deployed: as an internal mechanism for moving and managing funds rather than as a retail product.

Companies behind the integration

Decta, founded in 2015 in London, describes itself as a payments platform providing processing, acquiring, card issuing, banking, and related financial infrastructure for businesses. In its announcement, the company said it operates across 32 countries and serves hundreds of companies.

The company has previously explored stablecoin issuance. In August 2024, Decta Limited and Next Generation—described in a related announcement—said they were exploring a potential euro-pegged stablecoin that Decta could issue under the European Union’s MiCA framework, subject to regulatory approval.

OpenPayd, founded in London in 2018, positions itself as financial infrastructure that connects fiat and digital assets. Cointelegraph reported that OpenPayd secured authorization under MiCA in June, enabling it to provide crypto services across the European Economic Area, including fiat-to-stablecoin on- and off-ramps. The company lists clients including Kraken, eToro, OKX, and B2C2.

Why this matters—and what to watch next

Decta’s integration is notable not only because it uses USDC, but because it frames stablecoins as settlement plumbing within regulated payment ecosystems. If the “near-instantly” claim reflects measurable improvements to operational timing, it could encourage other payments firms to follow a similar path—particularly those with multi-entity structures that must manage internal obligations across jurisdictions.

For investors and market participants, the key question is whether this kind of treasury adoption remains confined to back-end settlement or expands toward broader distribution. Decta has indicated the USDC workflow is “proprietary treasury use” rather than a customer-facing flow, but the longer-term signal will come from whether other firms replicate the model and whether stablecoin settlement volumes outside retail activity continue to grow.

Readers should watch for additional details around how widely Decta will roll out the workflow across routes and entities, and whether OpenPayd’s MiCA-enabled infrastructure catalyzes more integrations from established payments players seeking flexibility in cross-border liquidity management.