Bakkt and Zoth have entered into a strategic partnership framework to build a compliant stablecoin payment infrastructure across remittance corridors connecting the U.S., South Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa.
Summary
- Bakkt and Zoth have partnered to build compliant stablecoin payment rails across South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
- Zoth said the partnership gives enterprise clients access to Bakkt’s U.S. licensing infrastructure for cross border settlements.
- Bakkt’s recent push into stablecoin and agentic payments has expanded after its acquisition of DTR earlier this year.
According to a press release shared with crypto.news, the agreement will place the company under the licensing structure of Bakkt Financial Solutions I, LLC, allowing Zoth to operate as an Authorized Agent while using Bakkt’s U.S. regulatory approvals for enterprise payment flows.
The Singapore-based firm said the setup is expected to help financial institutions and money transfer operators move stablecoin-based payments across high-volume corridors that have historically faced compliance hurdles.
The partnership expands Bakkt Inc.’s stablecoin payments strategy weeks after the company completed its acquisition of Distributed Technologies Research, or DTR, a payments infrastructure firm focused on AI-native and agentic transaction systems. Bakkt said at the time that the DTR deal would help it build a 24/7 digital settlement network using stablecoin rails for institutional finance.
Bakkt licenses become central to enterprise payment push
Zoth said Bakkt brings a licensing stack that includes pan-U.S. money transmitter licenses, FinCEN MSB registration, and a New York BitLicense through Bakkt Financial Solutions I, LLC. According to the company, enterprise payment operators have required a U.S.-licensed counterparty before expanding stablecoin settlement activity into regulated remittance markets.
“By combining Bakkt’s US licensing stack with Zoth’s payment infrastructure and on-the-ground market operations, we are creating a template for how cross-border payments in the Global South move from pilots to production at scale. This partnership does not just benefit Zoth. It benefits every enterprise partner that has been waiting for a compliant, credentialed solution built to operate,” Pritam Dutta, co-founder and CEO of Zoth, said in an accompanying statement.
Bakkt previewed the partnership during its Investor Day event on March 17, 2026, where the company signaled plans to deepen its stablecoin payment operations after integrating DTR’s infrastructure.
Zoth currently processes roughly $300 million in annualized total payment volume and expects the partnership to help scale activity toward $1 billion annually. The company noted that more than $75 million worth of yield products have already been sold through its platform.
According to Zoth, the partnership will initially focus on payment routes linking the U.S. with South Asia, the Philippines, Nigeria, and Gulf markets. The company also identified the UAE-to-South Asia corridor as the largest remittance route in the Middle East, while naming Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa among its active African markets.
Zoth said its existing operations include local banking relationships and payment infrastructure across the GCC, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, adding that major money transfer operators in the Gulf region are already working with its network through licensed local entities.
The partnership also adds another institutional stablecoin payments initiative to a market that has recently seen increased activity from fintech and blockchain infrastructure firms. Bakkt’s recent focus on agentic payments infrastructure through DTR, combined with Zoth’s regional payment network, places the companies in competition with firms building regulated stablecoin settlement systems for cross-border transfers.
Strategic partners listed by Zoth include Chainlink Labs, Olea Global Pte Ltd, and Intellistake Technologies Corp. The company said its product suite includes tokenized yield vaults, regulated treasury funds, cross-border payment orchestration tools, and AI agent-enabled payment services.
