Remitly’s next act: Building a multi-rail highway for global money

The second quarter of this year saw Remitly hit the right financial notes. 

In Q2 2025:

• Send volume increased 40% to $18.5 billion, from $13.2 billion in Q2 2024.
• Revenue increased 34% and totaled $411.9 million, compared to $306.4 million in the same time last year.
• Net income was $6.5 million, compared to a net loss of $12.1 million in the same period last year.

The bigger story, however, was Remitly’s push into digital assets. A day before sharing its quarterly earnings, the company announced its partnerships with Circle and Bridge to integrate stablecoins like USDC into its wallet. It’s a step that suggests remittances may get faster, but also start to look different from the rails they’ve long relied on.

We explore the challenge Remitly is addressing by introducing stablecoins into its ecosystem, and the new opportunities its recent partnerships bring to the table.

Why Remitly is bringing stablecoins onto its platform

Stablecoins are evolving from a niche trading tool into a mainstream financial instrument, propelled by regulatory clarity in major markets and growing adoption among merchants, fintechs, and institutions. At the same time, demand in emerging markets for stability and low-cost cross-border transfers aligns squarely with their core value proposition, according to Matt Oppenheimer, Co-founder and CEO of Remitly.

Explaining Remitly’s move to add stablecoins to its platform, he notes, “We always start with the customer problem, and in this case, there are two we have been watching closely for years.”

Oppenheimer breaks down those two key customer concerns:

i) The first is that there is a growing demand from customers to be able to store value in a more stable currency. 

Take Layla, a small business owner in Istanbul. Over the past five years, the Turkish Lira has lost more than 80% of its value against the US dollar. Layla’s goal is to save for her children’s education and reinvest in her shop, but every month her savings lose purchasing power. For Layla, access to a stable currency could be the line between progress and loss. This challenge is not uncommon in markets like Turkey or among SMB owners. “We see a huge opportunity in expanding access to multi-currency accounts to everyday people,” notes Oppenheimer.

ii) The infrastructure challenge is just as pressing. Moving money globally still means working through a patchwork of banks, payment processors, and settlement systems that create delays and tie up capital. 

“Traditional rails don’t operate 24/7 — so when we’re delivering funds instantly to customers around the clock, but settlement only happens during banking hours, we need a buffer of working capital,” says Oppenheimer. “Stablecoins let us move value instantly, including weekends and holidays, which reduces trapped capital and allows more precise liquidity deployment across our 170+ country network.”

The change today is rooted in both the stablecoin ecosystem coming of age and Remitly’s readiness to turn it into something practical for customers like Layla. “Anyone can hold USDC in a wallet, but Remitly can make those digital dollars usable at scale across billions of bank accounts and mobile wallets, and hundreds of thousands of cash pickup locations,” adds Oppenheimer.

What Circle and Bridge unlock for Remitly

Circle and Bridge partnerships pave the way for Remitly’s move into digital asset rails. Circle is Remitly’s USDC issuer, ensuring the USDC it holds for customers is fully backed by US dollars and instantly available. Bridge powers blockchain payouts for customers who want to receive USDC directly in a compatible wallet, executing the on-chain transfer. 

“Together, these partnerships allow Remitly to offer customers stablecoin access with the same compliance, transparency, and trust that define our core remittance product,” says Ankur Sinha, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Remitly.

“We wanted customers to have the option to store or receive USDC with the flexibility to access or convert it into local currency whenever they choose, all within the Remitly app they already trust.”

Beyond the customer experience, Circle also unlocks a critical treasury use case. Because Remitly can mint and burn USDC directly, it can fund payout partners globally in the same way it funds them with USD fiat. Doing so lowers its FX costs by reducing the number of conversions required across currencies, improves cash flow by eliminating settlement friction, and minimizes working capital needs by making funds move instantly.

This shifts stablecoins from being a front-end feature to a core infrastructure upgrade, enhancing Remitly’s capability to deliver faster service at lower cost.

Through a customer’s lens: As Remitly Wallet adds stablecoin storage and Bridge enables stablecoin payouts, how do these two features connect, particularly from a customer’s perspective in a B2C setting?

“From a customer perspective, it’s simple: fiat in, choice out,” says Sinha.

A sender funds in their local currency; the recipient can hold USDC in Remitly Wallet or another compatible stablecoin wallet, or withdraw into local currency via traditional rails.

Remitly handles all the complexity behind the scenes. “We find the fastest, most cost-efficient path for delivery, factoring in liquidity, confirmation times, fees, and corridor-specific compliance requirements,” adds Sinha. If conditions change mid-route, Remitly can automatically switch to another path to keep the delivery on time.

The markets first in line for stablecoin features: Remitly is rolling out the stablecoin feature, where the demand is strongest. In corridors like the US – Argentina, Nigeria, and Turkey, stablecoins can be a practical short-term hedge against volatility, inflation, or settlement delays, explains Sinha.

With a customer base of 8.5 million and transactions spanning more than 170 countries, Remitly has direct insight into emerging demand.

“While some might expect crypto familiarity to be low, the reality is stablecoins are already widely used in markets like these to manage savings and protect against currency depreciation,” Sinha shares.

He further explains that Remitly’s job isn’t to introduce stablecoins to these markets; it’s to make them usable by making conversion to local fiat smooth through Remitly’s global disbursement network. 

The vision for stablecoins in the Remitly ecosystem

Stablecoin rails could eventually extend into Remitly’s other B2B offerings, including Remitly Business and cross-border payroll services.

“The same advantages that make stablecoins compelling for consumers — instant settlement, predictable value, and lower payout costs — are just as powerful for SMBs, marketplaces, and global payroll platforms,” notes Sinha. 

For businesses moving money across time zones, the difference is tangible. “We’re already piloting this in targeted corridors, demonstrating how stablecoins can extend beyond consumer remittances to become infrastructure for global payroll and cross-border business payments,” says Sinha.

The long-term vision for Remitly is to become a multi-rail platform using both traditional rails and crypto-native infrastructure to move money globally.

Oppenheimer agrees, noting, “Our differentiators aren’t the number of rails we use; it’s the trust our customers place in us.”