SAP Clients Testing Circle’s USDC to Fix Cross-Border Payment ‘Hassle’

German software giant SAP is using US Dollar Coin (USDC) to test cross-border payments, the company has announced, described by Circle integrated campaigns director Peter Schroeder today as a “big deal.”

SAP, the largest non-American software company by revenue, announced that the “hassle for many small and mid-sized enterprises” of sending money overseas can be solved with “digital money”—and blockchain technology. And USDC is a stablecoin—a cryptocurrency pegged to a stable asset, in this case, the U.S. dollar. 

The company added that customers can now take part in receiving USDC, which runs on Ethereum, as "play money" to test out the payment option. The test will run on a separate blockchain, not Ethereum, and doesn't involve real ERC-20 USDC tokens. But if clients do show interest, Ethereum-based crypto adoption would soar, as many major corporations use SAP’s services. 

Schroeder added that “99/100 of the world’s largest companies” are SAP customers. 

“Rather than using traditional payment rails, business partners agree on settling a cross-border transaction with USDC or EUROC, which are tokenized versions of the USD or Euro, manifested in a blockchain,” the announcement read. 

Circle CEO Says 'Regulate Us' as Company Hires an Ex-Regulator

Circle, the fintech firm behind one of crypto’s largest stablecoins, named Heath Tarbert its new chief legal officer on Thursday, taking on the ex-regulator as an executive amid a double-tap of enforcement actions against exchanges from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Tarbert will also become Circle’s head of corporate affairs when he officially starts at the company in July, leaving behind his role as chief legal officer at Citadel Securities, the titanic market-making firm founde...

It added: “Are you ready to get into the fascinating world of Digital Money and Decentralized Finance?”

The experiment will not allow customers to make any payments with USDC, rather just receive some of the cryptocurrency along with an invoice to “experience how fast, affordable, and reliable cross-border payments will look like,” according to SAP. 

USDC is the fifth largest digital asset, with a market cap of $28.3 billion. In the past 24 hours, over $6 billion in USDC has traded hands on exchanges, according to CoinGecko. 

Circle, the fintech firm behind USDC, has been lobbying hard in Washington to sway lawmakers into making clear cut rules for the digital asset space.