Circle Agrees to Buy Singapore's Tazapay in a $400M All-Stock Deal

Circle has agreed to buy Tazapay, a Singapore cross-border payments company, for about $400 million in Circle stock. The agreement was announced on Tuesday, and both sides expect it to close in 2027, once regulators including the Monetary Authority of Singapore have cleared it. Tazapay ran more than $25 billion of annualized payment volume as of 31 July, with roughly 60% of that settling in stablecoins. No cash changes hands. Circle's own shares fell on the day.

What the stock consideration is worth

The number of shares is not fixed yet. Circle's 8-K sets the consideration at $400 million divided by the volume-weighted average closing price of its Class A stock over the 20 trading days before completion, then adjusted for debt, cash and transaction expenses. Two tranches are held back against claims: 5% of the total released over 18 months, and a further 3% released over 48 months. Tazapay employees get $25 million of restricted stock units on top, vesting over two years, and crypto.news adds that the vesting is quarterly. Circle held $1.73 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of June, on a figure Benzinga carries alone. The consideration is stock all the same.

Two readings of Tuesday's share price

Benzinga, writing at 9:19 a.m., had CRCL down 1.74% at $100.27 in premarket trading. crypto.news and Parameter both say the stock fell 5.8% on Tuesday and closed at $96.18, in a session that ranged between $95.20 and $101.14. Those are two moments in one session and not two versions of a single figure, and the close is the firmer of them. Parameter also has the shares falling another 2.7% on Wednesday to about $99.30, a level above Tuesday's close, so that pair cannot hold as written. We have left it out.

What Circle is buying

Tazapay's business is the last mile: moving money into and out of local banking systems in places where a dollar token on its own cannot be spent. It works with more than 60 banking and fintech partners and has payout rails in over 100 markets. American Banker, alone in this sweep, says it holds money transmitter licenses in Singapore, India, Hong Kong and the United States. The two companies already knew each other. Tazapay has been a design partner in Circle's payments network since 2025, and Circle put money into its Series B in March, though American Banker says Circle invested while CoinGape says Circle Ventures led a $36 million extension. Those accounts do not reconcile on which it was.

"Stablecoin settlement is becoming core infrastructure in the global economy, and combining USDC with Tazapay's world-class banking relationships, local payout rails, and institutional customer base will accelerate worldwide USDC adoption," Jeremy Allaire, Circle's chief executive, said in the announcement.

Nothing lands until 2027

Regulatory clearance is not the only condition. The agreement also requires at least 75% of Tazapay's staff to stay, key senior managers to remain employed, and a registration statement covering resale of the new shares to be effective, with a nine-month outside date that stretches to 15 months if the regulatory work runs long. Neither company has named the corridors that get USDC support first. Irfan Ganchi, Circle's senior vice president of payments, said the deal "moves Circle closer to a world where USDC becomes the default rail for global commerce", which is a direction and not a schedule. Circle has spent this year assembling the licensed pieces of that plan, including final OCC approval for a national trust bank, and Mastercard bought its way into the same business when it closed its BVNK deal at $1.5 billion. What happens next sits with Singapore's regulator, and with a retention threshold that has to hold for more than a year.