SBI Backs dtcpay's $25 Million Series A for BNB Chain Stablecoin Payments

Japanese Capital Enters a $25 Million Round

Stablecoin payments firm dtcpay has formally completed a $25 million Series A funding round, with Japan's SBI Group entering as a strategic investor, the company's official announcement on September 18 confirms. The Tokyo-headquartered financial group participated through subsidiary SBI Ventures Asset and the SBI-NTU-Kyobo Digital Innovation Fund, a vehicle operated within the SBI group. The round had been anchored earlier in the year by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, while existing backers Genedant Capital and Kwee Liong Tek maintained their positions through the close. Neither side disclosed how much of the $25 million SBI contributed; the official release likewise withheld dtcpay's valuation, revenue figures and the exact allocation of proceeds. What the disclosure does specify is use of funds: dtcpay will build an enterprise portal for corporate clients, refresh its merchant-facing dashboard, and roll out new app features that let retail customers convert stablecoins into spendable fiat inside the product. For SBI, the investment maps onto a stated strategy of making Singapore the group's primary digital-asset hub for the Asia-Pacific region, with dtcpay's payment platform and merchant network framed as the foundation for expanding digital-asset flows between Japan and Southeast Asia. Alice Liu, dtcpay's founder and chief executive, framed the raise in expansionary terms: “We did not raise this round to sustain what we have built. We raised it to fundamentally change how money moves across borders.” Stablecoin processing sits at the junction of licensed finance and on-chain infrastructure — a service category adjacent to 0x protocol, the decentralized exchange infrastructure for Ethereum tokens — because every fiat-to-crypto corridor must move regulated money on-chain under a permit.

A Licensed Stablecoin Network Beyond the Card

dtcpay's appeal to a bank-affiliated investor rests on its regulatory posture. The company operates under a Major Payment Institution license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore — a permit that authorizes large-scale payment services above statutory thresholds — and holds an electronic money institution license in Luxembourg, giving it a documented regulatory footprint spanning Europe, Hong Kong, Australia and North America. On the product side, dtcpay lets businesses and individuals receive, store and exchange stablecoins against fiat currencies. Its proprietary real-time swap engine settles stablecoin-to-fiat conversions and payments instantly, a design that differs from an AMM, or automated market maker, which prices trades against pooled on-chain liquidity rather than a direct fiat channel. Through an integration with WalletConnect, the firm says it can accept payments from more than 700 wallets. Retail customers can spend stablecoins like ordinary money through a Visa Infinite card that, per the company, works at more than 150 million merchant locations worldwide. The company also plans to upgrade its merchant-facing management dashboard and add consumer features inside the dtcpay app as part of the expansion. Stablecoin settlement at the consumer layer has historically clustered on high-throughput chains — TRON carries a large share of global stablecoin transfers — but licensed processors increasingly sit above those chains as the compliance and conversion layer. dtcpay has also partnered with BNB Chain and, per Japanese-language coverage of the deal, works with Singapore merchants including the Metro department store chain and the Capella Singapore hotel to push stablecoin acceptance into physical retail. That mix of a licensed core, custody and conversion services, and consumer spend rails explains why SBI — which recently acquired Singapore's Coinhako, holds a multibillion-dollar stake in Ripple to distribute the RLUSD stablecoin, and acts as a founding validator on Circle's Arc network — views dtcpay as a complement to its existing stablecoin infrastructure. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

Why SBI Wants Regulated Payment Rails

The round — $25 million at Series A stage, anchored by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India and extended by SBI Group, per the official funding announcement — reads as a bet that regulated stablecoin processors, not raw settlement chains, will capture the value of cross-border money movement. The company has not disclosed its valuation, and our read is that the undisclosed figures, together with SBI's unstated check size, leave the true pricing of the deal an open question. Still, the direction is clear: Japanese capital is paying up for licensed on-ramps into Southeast Asian commerce.