For businesses operating across borders, managing finances is increasingly complex. From international payments and corporate spending to treasury management, finance teams often rely on multiple providers and systems to run their operations.
Stablecoins make it possible to move money globally, instantly, and around the clock. But faster payments alone aren't enough. Businesses still need the security, controls, and financial tools to manage their money with confidence.
Altitude, a global business banking platform built by the team behind Squads, brings these capabilities together in a single operating account. Businesses can manage multi-currency accounts, send and receive payments across banking and stablecoin rails, issue corporate cards, and streamline accounting with integrations to QuickBooks and Xero.
Unlike traditional banking products, Altitude is built on self-custodial infrastructure, giving businesses direct control over their funds. Approvals and permissions are enforced onchain, so only authorized parties can access and move funds.
Making self-custody enterprise-ready
Self-custody has traditionally been associated with complex key management and technical workflows, making it seem impractical for businesses managing significant capital. But businesses shouldn't have to choose between control over their funds and a secure, intuitive experience.
Altitude set out to combine the security of self-custody with the simplicity of traditional business banking. Privy makes this possible by allowing finance teams to sign in and approve transactions using email and passkeys, without managing seed phrases.
Behind the scenes, Privy signers work alongside hardware and backup signers within Altitude's account architecture. Combined with Squads' onchain-enforced permissions, this gives Altitude the flexibility to build secure financial accounts that businesses can use globally, without the operational complexity typically associated with self-custody.
Connect wallets to the broader financial stack
To support everyday business operations, Altitude also needed to connect its wallet infrastructure to traditional banking and payment systems.
Altitude uses Privy alongside Bridge, Stripe's stablecoin orchestration platform, to bring these capabilities together. Privy provides secure wallet and key management, while Bridge enables virtual accounts, fiat-to-stablecoin conversion, and global payments across banking and stablecoin rails, including SWIFT pay-ins and payouts.
By building on Privy and Bridge, Altitude can offer a unified financial experience without having to build and maintain the underlying wallet and money movement infrastructure itself.
"Finance teams shouldn't have to choose between a provider that holds their money and a wallet with no finance tools. With Privy handling sign-in and keys, our customers approve payments with an email and a passkey, while the account and its rules stay theirs." — Stepan Simkin, CEO, Squads
What’s next: automating financial operations
Altitude is now working toward automating routine finance workflows, with businesses setting the policies that govern how their money moves.
With the recently launched Altitude MCP, AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT can securely access account information. Next, Altitude plans to enable agents to pay approved invoices, categorize transactions, and reconcile accounts within policies set by finance teams.
The team is also developing deeper ERP integrations, streamlined FX accounting, and corporate cards with more granular spending controls.
From developing custom authentication flows to supporting Altitude's evolving needs as it scales, Privy has worked closely with the Squads team to bring its vision to life. We're excited to continue building alongside Altitude as it brings more financial operations onchain and makes secure, automated business finance a reality.