For years, stablecoins have carried a simple promise: move money globally with the speed of the internet, without the cost and delays of traditional banking rails. The harder question has always been whether they can move from crypto-native circles into regulated, everyday payments.
Singapore-based dtcpay is betting that the answer lies not in bypassing the financial system, but in building tightly licensed infrastructure that lets stablecoins sit alongside fiat money.
The company has completed its US$25 million Series A round, adding Japan’s SBI Group as a strategic investor after Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India led the initial tranche in April 2026.
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SBI is investing through SBI Ventures Asset and the SBI-NTU-Kyobo Digital Innovation Fund. The round also includes Genedant Capital and existing investor Kwee Liong Tek, a Singaporean business figure who has continued to back the company.
The fundraise gives dtcpay more capital at a time when stablecoins are drawing renewed attention from banks, payment companies and regulators. Unlike volatile cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, stablecoins are digital tokens typically pegged to fiat currencies such as the US dollar. In theory, that makes them more useful for payments and settlement. In practice, adoption still depends on licensing, banking access, merchant acceptance and whether consumers see any reason to use them.
Building payment rails, not just a crypto wallet
Founded by Alice Liu and Band Zhao, dtcpay provides infrastructure that allows businesses and individuals to accept, hold and transact using stablecoins and fiat currencies. Its system includes a real-time swap engine that converts between stablecoins and traditional money, aiming to reduce the operational friction that often comes with handling digital assets.
The company positions itself against the long-standing pain points of cross-border payments. Many international transfers still rely on correspondent banking networks and SWIFT messaging, which can involve multiple intermediaries, opaque fees and settlement times stretching over several days. This is particularly relevant in Southeast Asia, where businesses frequently operate across fragmented currencies, banking systems and regulatory regimes.
dtcpay’s proposition is that stablecoins can help compress settlement time and cost, but only if wrapped inside regulated payment infrastructure that merchants and institutions can trust.
The company has already pushed into several commercial use cases. It launched a Digital Payment Token point-of-sale acceptance product, enabling merchants to accept stablecoin payments in physical stores. It also integrated with WalletConnect, giving it access to more than 700 wallets used by consumers globally.
On the consumer side, dtcpay partnered with Visa to introduce a stablecoin-to-fiat Visa Infinite card for customers in the region. The card allows users to spend across fiat and stablecoin balances at more than 150 million merchant locations worldwide, according to the company.
Also Read: Southeast Asia can’t simply license its way to stablecoin sovereignty
In Singapore, dtcpay has also worked with BNB Chain on stablecoin adoption and enabled department store Metro to accept stablecoin payments. Hospitality partners such as Capella Singapore have also been part of its early merchant network.
These examples matter because stablecoin payments have often struggled to break out of online trading and treasury use cases. For adoption to deepen in Southeast Asia, the technology needs to work in settings that are familiar to both merchants and consumers: retail checkouts, corporate payments, travel, remittances and cross-border trade.
Regulation as a growth strategy
dtcpay’s biggest selling point is not simply its technology, but its licensing posture. The company is a Major Payment Institution licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. It also holds an Electronic Money Institution licence in Luxembourg, allowing it to provide regulated payment services across the European Economic Area. In addition, dtcpay says it holds licences and registrations in Hong Kong, Australia, the US and Canada.
That regulatory footprint gives dtcpay a base from which to pursue both Asian and Western markets. It also reflects a broader shift in digital assets: after years of offshore experimentation, institutional capital is now gravitating towards companies that can meet compliance requirements in major financial centres.
Singapore has been central to that shift. The city-state has tightened rules around crypto speculation while continuing to support regulated digital asset infrastructure, tokenisation and cross-border payment experiments. For startups such as dtcpay, that creates both an opportunity and a constraint. The market rewards regulatory discipline, but moving too slowly can allow global competitors to capture corridors before regional players scale.
The fresh funds will be used to expand dtcpay’s product suite and merchant network, as well as support its product roadmap for the rest of 2026. The company plans to launch a revamped business portal for enterprise clients and add more consumer-facing features to the dtcpay app.
“We did not raise this round to sustain what we have built. We raised it to fundamentally change how money moves across borders,” said Liu, founder and CEO of dtcpay. She added that SBI’s backing validates the view that compliant, real-world stablecoin payments are “not a distant vision but an infrastructure being built right now.”
Why SBI’s entry matters
SBI’s participation gives dtcpay more than a financial investor. The Japanese group operates across securities, banking, insurance, asset management and digital assets, and has long been active in fintech and blockchain-related infrastructure. Its Singapore arm, SBI Ven Capital, manages the SBI-NTU-Kyobo Digital Innovation Fund, which was launched in 2022 to invest in early-stage digital transformation and platform companies across Southeast Asia.
For dtcpay, SBI could help open doors in Japan and across institutional financial networks. For SBI, the investment fits a wider regional strategy as Japanese financial groups look beyond a mature domestic market and seek exposure to Southeast Asia’s faster-growing digital economy.
“dtcpay has made decisive progress in establishing itself as the region’s leading regulated payment infrastructure that bridges traditional payments and stablecoins,” said Eiichiro So, CEO of SBI Ven Capital. He added that the investment marks the start of a strategic partnership and supports SBI’s aim to expand digital asset corridors between Japan and Southeast Asia.
Genedant Capital, a Singapore-based fund manager with more than US$2 billion in assets under management and advisory, brings a different network of family offices, private wealth investors and institutional relationships. Vertex, meanwhile, gives dtcpay access to a venture platform with a long history of backing Southeast Asian technology companies.
A crowded race for stablecoin payments
dtcpay is not alone in trying to make stablecoins usable for mainstream commerce and financial institutions. In Singapore, Triple-A has built crypto payment acceptance infrastructure for merchants, while StraitsX, part of Fazz, focuses on regulated stablecoin issuance and digital payment infrastructure.
Globally, companies such as Circle, Ripple and BVNK are pursuing various parts of the same market, from stablecoin settlement and treasury tools to cross-border payment rails for businesses.
Also Read: Nium acquires Cypher as fiat and stablecoin payments converge
The competitive question is whether dtcpay can convert its licences, merchant integrations and investor network into scale. Stablecoin payments are still early, and many users remain indifferent to what rails sit underneath a transaction as long as it is fast, cheap and reliable. That means dtcpay’s success will depend less on convincing the public to “use stablecoins” and more on making the experience feel no different from existing digital payments.
That is a difficult but potentially large opening. Southeast Asia’s businesses already operate across borders, currencies and platforms. If regulated stablecoin infrastructure can reduce settlement delays without adding compliance risk, it could become a practical layer in the region’s payment stack.
dtcpay’s US$25 million round suggests investors believe that moment is getting closer. The harder work now is proving that stablecoins can become not just a financial market instrument, but a routine way for people and companies to move value.
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