Tether backs Panama's EFY Finance in seed round to link stablecoins and banks

Tether has taken a stake in EFY Finance, a Panama-based fintech, as part of the company's seed funding round. The size of the investment was not disclosed.

EFY Finance builds infrastructure for cross-border payments, digital asset custody and stablecoin accounts. Its platform lets businesses and individuals convert traditional currencies into stablecoins, access digital wallets and cards, and settle payments through local bank accounts — a combination aimed at companies that need to move money between markets without stitching together separate banking and crypto rails.

The company said it will use the investment to expand institutional access to USD₮ and USA₮ and to strengthen connections between stablecoins, banks and payment networks. That framing puts Tether's two dollar tokens at the center of EFY's roadmap rather than treating stablecoins as one option among many.

The backing lands on an operation that already has meaningful scale. EFY Finance holds a Digital Asset Service Provider license in El Salvador and serves more than 25,000 active individual and business accounts. Its platform supports more than 12 currencies and payment corridors, and offers local settlement in 17 countries.

For Tether, the deal is a channel into a regional payments layer that touches both corporate treasury flows and retail-style accounts. Stablecoin issuers have increasingly looked to distribute their tokens through licensed local infrastructure rather than relying solely on exchanges, and a seed-stage position in a LatAm-focused platform gives Tether a say in how USD₮ and USA₮ reach institutional users across the region.

For EFY, the strategic value likely runs beyond the check itself: an investment from the issuer of the assets it distributes can smooth integration with banking partners and payment networks that remain wary of crypto-linked settlement. The company's pitch — converting local currencies into stablecoins, holding them in custody, and paying out through domestic bank accounts — depends on exactly that kind of connective tissue.

The round adds another name to a small but growing group of Latin American fintechs positioning themselves as bridges between regulated banking and digital assets. Whether that positioning converts into institutional volume will depend on how quickly EFY can extend settlement coverage and deepen its bank relationships, the two areas the new capital is earmarked to address.