Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Monday (April 21) after being confirmed by the Senate earlier this month. Atkins, who has long been personally involved with digital assets, is viewed favorably by industry advocates, who are hopeful he will use his position atop the regulatory body to drive forward regulatory clarity for the digital asset landscape.

In a sign of the evolving times, Circle, the FinTech firm best known for the USDC stablecoin, unveiled Monday an initiative called the Circle Payments Network (CPN), which aims to modernize how value flows worldwide.

CPN will connect financial institutions and enable real-time settlement of cross-border payments using USDC, EURC and other regulated stablecoins, the company laid out in a white paper.

Separately, crypto companies like Paxos and Coinbase, as well as Circle, are pursuing bank charters, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, essentially seeking to become part of the very banking system that has historically kept them at arm's length.

For chief financial officers, treasurers and payment executives, these trends could affect how companies manage money in the coming years.

What to Know About Circle's Payment Network and Stablecoins

At a high level, CPN is a blockchain-powered payment network that connects financial institutions (FIs) and allows them to transact using digital stablecoins as the settlement medium. Participants might include banks, neobanks, payment service providers, FinTechs and digital wallet operators.

By joining CPN, these institutions can send and receive payments globally in real time via stablecoins like USDC (a U.S. dollar-pegged coin) or EURC (a euro-pegged coin), which are redeemable 1-to-1 for fiat currency. The stablecoins effectively act as the transmittal vehicle for value, zipping from sender to receiver faster than traditional bank wires.

One key aspect is that CPN itself doesn't move cash between bank accounts in the old-fashioned way. Instead, it coordinates the movement of stablecoins between network participants.

"Importantly, CPN does not move funds directly; rather, it serves as a marketplace of financial institutions and acts as a coordination protocol that orchestrates global money movement and the seamless exchange of information," Circle's white paper said.

CPN can essentially be viewed as an orchestration layer that tells participants how and when to transfer tokens (and the corresponding fiat on their balance sheets) to complete a transaction. Circle's role is as the network operator defining the rules (the protocol) and providing the APIs and smart contracts that participants plug into.