LuLu lowers settlement costs 30% with Circle USDC

LuLu Financial Holdings has cut cross-border settlement costs by 25% to 30% after adopting Circle’s USDC stablecoin and Circle Mint for remittance flows across the Gulf, Middle East, North Africa and Asia-Pacific, according to figures released by Circle.

The payments group also recorded a 40% increase in cross-border settlement volume after shifting part of its treasury and settlement infrastructure to USDC. Beneficiaries are credited in under a minute once settlement is completed, while the company says the system operates around the clock rather than being restricted by correspondent-banking hours.

Circle disclosed the operating results in a case study on LuLu Financial Holdings, following an August 26 announcement highlighting the use of USDC and Circle Mint across the company’s payment corridors. The figures compare the new system with LuLu’s previous correspondent-banking channels and are based on data reported by the company.

The arrangement allows LuLu Financial to move US dollar liquidity through blockchain-based settlement without abandoning dollar denomination. Dollars are deposited into a Circle Mint account and converted one-for-one into USDC. The tokens are then transferred to partner wallets for cross-border settlement, where receiving institutions can retain USDC as working liquidity or redeem it into fiat currency through supported banking and payout channels.

That structure is intended to reduce the delays and additional costs that arise when dollar settlement crosses several time zones and depends on the operating hours of correspondent banks. LuLu’s infrastructure serves payment activity across Gulf Cooperation Council markets, the wider Middle East and North Africa, and Asia-Pacific, making liquidity management outside conventional banking windows a persistent operational issue.

Joseph Cleetus, head of business transformation at LuLu Financial Holdings, said the constraints were affecting more than payment speed. “We weren’t just dealing with technical delays. These gaps directly hit our settlement efficiency and our ability to move liquidity when it was needed most,” he said in Circle’s case study.

LuLu reports 100% settlement-amount accuracy and a 100% conversion success rate across its on-ramp and off-ramp flows. The company says funds appear in its wallet as soon as they’re credited directly to its Circle account. Treasury and operations teams can also verify payment status and amounts on-chain rather than tracing transactions through multiple correspondent intermediaries. Circle said the shift had consolidated wallet, settlement and blockchain operations that had previously involved several providers.

The company’s results illustrate how regulated payment firms are using stablecoins primarily as treasury and settlement instruments rather than as replacements for the currencies ultimately received by customers. USDC is designed to track the US dollar and is redeemable one-for-one for dollars. Circle says the token is backed by highly liquid dollar-denominated assets, including cash and short-dated US government securities held within its reserve structure.

Circle Mint is an institutional service rather than a retail product. For the LuLu arrangement, Circle says the service is provided by Circle Internet Singapore, which holds a major payment institution licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Circle also notes that Mint is not a bank account and funds held through it are not covered by government deposit insurance.

The settlement model does not eliminate the banking system entirely. While USDC transfers can move at any hour, converting the stablecoin back into fiat still relies on supported banking rails. Circle’s case study says fiat redemptions are credited during US business hours where the relevant account is held, an important qualification to the description of the process as 24/7.

LuLu Financial’s adoption comes as payment companies increasingly test stablecoins for cross-border treasury management, where conventional correspondent networks can involve several intermediaries, cut-off times and foreign-exchange costs. The attraction for institutions is less about cryptocurrency exposure than the ability to transfer a dollar-linked instrument continuously and settle transactions on-chain with near-real-time visibility.