Shares of Fiserv Inc. surged on Monday following the financial technology behemoth’s entry into the stablecoin market, demonstrating Wall Street’s sustained enthusiasm for firms exposed to the quickly expanding stablecoin space.
In order to improve banking and payment flows for financial organizations, Fiserv (FI) announced plans to introduce a new stablecoin, FIUSD, as part of a new digital currency platform.
As one of the top performers in the S&P 500 index SPX, the stock increased 2.3% in afternoon trade.
Since the U.S. Senate passed its version of the Genius Act last week, which establishes a regulatory framework for stablecoins, investors have become more interested in stablecoins.
Since the final stablecoin regulations have not yet been created and the U.S. House of Representatives has not enacted its version of the bill, there are still a lot of unknowns.
However, stock prices have been rising in this new industry as Wall Street and Capitol Hill have become more serious about stablecoins and cryptocurrencies in general.
Since coming public on June 5 at $31 per share, shares of stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group Inc. (CRCL) have surged in value, indicating Wall Street’s interest. On Monday, the stock increased once again, rising 12.6% to $270.54 per share, or almost 8.7 times higher than the $31 price at which it was first offered to the public.
Fiserv announced on Monday that it would be collaborating with Circle on the FIUSD stablecoin, which might have contributed to another increase in Circle’s stock price.
According to Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, “Fiserv is positioned to extend the benefits of open internet finance and stablecoin-based payments to thousands of financial institutions.”
Additionally, Fiserv stated that it was collaborating with the virtual currency marketplace Paxos Trust Co. LLC.
Fiserv called FIUSD a “financial institution-friendly coin that simplifies stablecoin access through a secure and scalable ecosystem.”
In order to “build future interoperability” between FIUSD and the PayPal USD (PYUSD) stable coin, Fiserv also stated that it is expanding its cooperation with PayPal Holdings Inc. (PYPL) to enable businesses and consumers to transfer money both domestically and abroad.
On Monday, PayPal’s stock increased 1.2%.
Separately, Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer raised his price objective from $301 to $421 per share and reaffirmed a buy rating on shares of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. (COIN), which has recently joined the stablecoin market. Palmer is therefore the most optimistic of the 37 analysts who follow Coinbase’s stock that FactSet polled.
Following the launch of Coinbase Payments, which the firm referred to be a “stablecoin payments stack” for commerce platforms, Coinbase’s stock had surged 21.5% over the previous two sessions.
The stock of Coinbase fell 1.1%.
The stablecoin Payments for USDC, according to benchmark analyst Palmer, “represents a new, scalable revenue stream that could help it to diversify beyond crypto trading volumes.”
According to him, it is also aiming for the first stablecoin collateralization on a regulated U.S. futures market.