Neobank Dakota launches stablecoin platform for businesses

• Key insight: A neobank is offering businesses global money movement services through stablecoin rails.
• What's at stake: Fintechs are quickly meeting increased stablecoin demand from enterprise firms.
• Supporting Data: Organizations using stablecoins are reporting cost savings upward of 10%, according to an EY report.

The neobank Dakota is shifting to become a stablecoin infrastructure platform.

Founded by former Coinbase executive Ryan Bozarth, Dakota raised $12.5 million in a Series A led by the crypto venture firm CoinFund last summer, and is now focusing on offering global money movement services to businesses through stablecoin rails and APIs.

The fintech now offers business customers stablecoin-based services including APIs for stablecoin custody, cross-border treasury operations, compliance tools, international payout options and an upcoming stablecoin issuance product.

"Most companies don't want to become banks or payments networks," said Bozarth, CEO of Dakota. "They want reliable, regulated primitives that let them move money inside their own products. Dakota is building that infrastructure so teams can stay focused on product and growth, not licensing, custody or compliance."

Dakota was started in 2022 as a banking and stablecoin fintech for businesses. The company plans to continue offering business banking and stablecoins to clients even as the firm shifts toward tech infrastructure offerings. 

Dakota is a registered money services business in the United States, and holds state money transmitter licenses in lieu of a bank charter. The neobank is in the process of acquiring electronic money institution and crypto asset service provider licenses in Europe, according to the company.

"If stablecoins are going to power real economic activity, they need to integrate with existing compliance and risk standards," Bozarth said. "Our role is to make that integration native, not an afterthought."

Banking services for fiat currency are provided by Dakota through multiple global bank partners, with FDIC insurance provided through U.S. bank partners such as Lead Bank, according to a company representative.

Dakota has also partnered with Bridge, a stablecoin platform bought by the payment company Stripe. Dakota currently uses Bridge's APIs to transfer funds and handle deposits without managing customer funds directly and issue its own DKUSD stablecoin. Bridge also backs funds deposited into Dakota with U.S. Treasuries, according to the company. 

"We operate a stablecoin today that is issued by a third party and are in the process of migrating to our own solution," Bozarth told American Banker, referring to Dakota's upcoming stablecoin issuance product, "as well as [building] the ability to issue white-label stablecoins. If a client of Dakota wants to issue their own stablecoin in the future, that's something that would be an option for them."

Nic Puckrin, co-founder of Coin Bureau, told American Banker that industry evidence suggests a demand for stablecoins, driven by the promise of cheaper and faster cross-border settlements, that both fintechs and traditional financial institutions are trying to meet.

According to a September 2025 survey from EY, organizations using stablecoins are reporting cost savings upwards of 10% with projections that by 2030, stablecoins could account for 5% to 10% of global payments.

"While there are many initiatives in place already, traditional financial institutions aren't yet ready to meet this demand at scale," Puckrin said. "It's partly down to their legacy infrastructure, which still needs to catch up with new digital frameworks, and partly because current efforts are relatively fragmented, though we are seeing some encouraging joint initiatives."

Currently, according to the EY survey, the majority of that demand is driven by financial institutions, 23% of which say they use stablecoins versus 8% of corporate respondents. The majority of use cases are in B2B payments, and a majority of respondents are also expecting interest to increase over the next six to 12 months.

"We see increasing demand from fintechs and payment service providers that are either looking to build new products on stablecoin infrastructure directly or are considering supplementing their existing product with stablecoins as a payment rail," Bozarth said. "On the more traditional side, such as banks and credit unions, we see an increased appetite to add stablecoin infrastructure as a way to increase top line revenue and as a way to overcome some concerns around deposit flight."

"Fintechs that have already been operating in this space for some time are well positioned to fill the gap," Puckrin said. "Over time, this gap may shrink as institutions catch up, and then economies of scale may win out over smaller and nimbler offerings. But, for the time being, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."