LuLu Financial cuts settlement costs 30% using Circle USDC
USDC (USDC)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
The Arabian Post reports that LuLu Financial Holdings has reduced its settlement costs by 30% after shifting part of its treasury infrastructure to Circle USDC. Following an August 26 announcement, the payments group recorded a 40% increase in cross-border settlement volume by utilizing Circle Mint for its payment corridors. Dollars are deposited into a Circle Mint account and converted one-for-one into USDC, which is then transferred to partner wallets for settlement.
This structure allows LuLu to move dollar liquidity through blockchain-based settlement without abandoning dollar denomination, operating around the clock rather than being restricted by correspondent-banking hours. Beneficiaries are credited in under a minute once settlement is completed, and the company maintains 100% settlement-amount accuracy with a 100% conversion success rate. Joseph Cleetus, head of business transformation at LuLu Financial Holdings, stated, “We weren’t just dealing with technical delays.
These gaps directly hit our settlement efficiency and our ability to move liquidity when it was needed most.” The system consolidates wallet, settlement, and blockchain operations that previously involved several providers, allowing teams to verify payment status on-chain. Circle Internet Singapore provides the service under a major payment institution licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. While fiat redemptions rely on supported banking rails during US business hours, the USDC transfers themselves move continuously. This adoption highlights how regulated payment firms are using stablecoins as treasury instruments to transfer dollar-linked instruments with near-real-time visibility.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for USDC, measured when this story was written up on 14 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
USDC is trading at $1.00 on Binance spot, with a 24-hour buy ratio of 50.8% indicating a slight edge for buyers over the full day. However, shorter-term pressure shows divergence, with the 1-hour buy ratio at 43.6% and the 4-hour ratio at 49.4%, suggesting buying momentum is fading in the immediate term. The 1-hour volume delta is -$22,765,523, meaning more volume was sold than bought in the last hour, while the 4-hour delta is -$6,415,560. In contrast, the 24-hour volume delta is positive at +$22,307,903, indicating that net buying dominated earlier in the day. The Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD) for the 24-hour close is -$7,944,303, showing that despite the positive volume delta, aggressive market selling has outweighed passive buying pressure by the close. Spot volume for the period was $1,318,506,394 across 321,483 trades.
The latest daily buy ratio of 50.2% sits at the 73rd percentile of the last 322 days, against a median of 48.4% - stronger buying than most days.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for USDC, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, the average buy ratio was 49.6%, making today’s 24-hour ratio of 50.8% slightly higher by 1.3 percentage points. Trading activity was subdued compared to the norm, with 24-hour volume at 0.50x the weekly average. Net buying occurred on only 3 of the 7 days, and the total volume delta for the week was -$167,086,352. Price remained flat with a 0.0% change over the 8-day period. This suggests that while today saw marginally more buying than the weekly average, the overall trend remains characterized by net outflows and low volume relative to typical activity.