SAP testing cross-border payments using Circle’s USDC stablecoin

German software giant SAP is testing Circle’s Ethereum-based USDC stablecoin for clients to tackle difficulties associated with existing cross-border payments.

The company aims to provide a solution to the "hassle” for businesses when sending money overseas by leveraging the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin and its less-adopted Euro-pegged equivalent EUROC, according to a blog post.

Today’s "cross-border payments are a hassle for many small and mid-sized enterprises with international business partners, expensive – up to $50 per transaction, slow – up to seven days to transmit the money, and non-transparent – you never know the status of the transaction,” said SAP product expert Sissi Ruthe in the post.

“These major challenges can get solved with digital money as a means of settlement and blockchain as the underlying technology,” Ruthe added.

SAP customers can receive the cryptocurrency as "play money" in self-custody wallets — removing the need for intermediaries — to pay a sample invoice in a free test drive of the experiment to “experience how fast, affordable and reliable cross-border payments will look like.” However, the funds cannot be used in the real world as it runs on a test network rather than the main Ethereum blockchain and will not involve real tokens.

Circle is the second-largest stablecoin behind Tether’s USDT, with a market cap of $28.3 billion, according to CoinGecko.

Last week, Jeremy Allaire, CEO and co-founder of Circle, urged lawmakers to defend the U.S. Dollar’s primacy and pass stablecoin legislation.