Xapo Bank, a licensed private bank and leading Bitcoin custodian, announced it has partnered with Circle, a global financial technology company, to integrate USDC payment rails. 

According to the press release, Xapo Bank members can now bypass the costly and time-consuming SWIFT payment system. Instead, they can deposit and withdraw via the stablecoin with no fees charged by Xapo Bank.

Additionally, Xapo Bank offers a 1:1 conversion rate from USDC to USD, and all USDC deposits are automatically converted to USD, allowing members to benefit from a 4.1% annual interest rate return on their deposits.

Seamus Rocca, CEO of Xapo Bank said in the statement: 

"Xapo Bank was built to protect members' savings. Unlike many traditional banks, we do not offer customer loans and therefore, all of our customers' money is held dollar for dollar on our balance sheet. It is invested in very short dated, highly credit rated, money market instruments and short term bonds. We are passing that benefit to our customers in the form of a 4.1% interest rate, paid daily."

"We charge an honest membership fee of $150 USD to our members that helps us recover our overheads and means we don't have to rely on paying almost no interest to our customers, or use hidden fees to make money. We give the benefit of more than 80% of the yield we generate back to our members."

Last week, Xapo Bank announced its integration with the Faster Payment System (FPS) to enable support for GBP settlement for account deposits and withdrawals. In addition, earlier this month, Xapo Bank partnered with Lightspark to integrate with Bitcoin's Lightning Network.