Yellow Card Raises $40M to Expand Stablecoin Payments for…

African stablecoin payments firm Yellow Card has secured $40 million in strategic equity funding to expand its stablecoin-based payment infrastructure and encourage banks to adopt blockchain networks for moving dollars across borders.

The round was backed by SC Ventures, the venture arm of Standard Chartered; Sony Innovation Fund; Polychain Capital; and Blockchain Capital. The company has now raised more than $120 million in total equity funding. A person familiar with the deal said the new valuation is above the $200 million level reported in 2022 but still below $1 billion; Yellow Card did not confirm the figure.

The funds will go toward scaling Global USD Accounts, a dollar account product aimed at businesses, and adding more stablecoin and local payment options in Latin America and Asia-Pacific. Yellow Card says the product lets businesses hold dollars and stablecoins, exchange digital assets, manage treasury operations and send or receive local currencies through domestic payment systems. It says the service connects to local payment rails in more than 50 countries.

CEO Chris Maurice said the company is working with commercial banks worldwide to use stablecoins to bring more dollars into local markets and replace older payment infrastructure. “The very near future state for this industry is one where payments flow directly between banks onchain, without B2B payments companies or other payment service companies in the flow at all,” Maurice said. He said bank-related volumes are growing faster than other segments, while historical transaction flows have been roughly evenly split between corporations and large financial institutions using the company’s treasury and payment infrastructure.

Yellow Card was founded in 2016 and has processed more than $10 billion in transactions since then. It holds licenses, authorizations or registrations in 22 jurisdictions. Its origins in Africa, where regulatory systems are fragmented, could help as it enters Latin America and Asia-Pacific, but each new market also brings separate legal approvals, banking partners and payment integrations.

The company’s broader pitch is that stablecoin settlement can reduce the number of intermediaries in international transfers. Businesses can convert local currency into a dollar-backed token, move it over a blockchain network, and convert it into another currency through a local banking or payment partner. That approach still needs reliable connections between digital dollars and domestic banking systems.

The funding comes as traditional networks such as Swift, which processes more than 53 million secure messaging instructions daily for nearly 11,500 financial institutions, are also exploring blockchain infrastructure. Yellow Card’s next test is whether rising bank volumes turn into recurring revenue and whether stablecoin rails can secure a durable share of global business payments.