The Rise of Stablecoins: How Global Payroll & Payments Are Changing Forever

Global payments infrastructure is undergoing a transformation beyond the speculative noise of the past.

A new utility-driven economy has emerged where borders no longer dictate speed or cost of commerce.

Now today, workers are choosing to be paid in stable value assets while enterprises are rewiring their payroll, as well as settlement systems to meet a surge in demand.

While joining.

This morning to weigh in as Chris Harmse, Managing Director at BVNK.

Chris, good morning.

Thank you so much for joining me.

So first, nearly 40% of users receive income in stable coins, including salaries and freelance pay.

But how does this shift in global payroll change the way that enterprises have to think about liquidity as well as talent acquisition here.

Hi Remy, firstly, it's really good to be speaking with you today.

Look, I think, um, you know, I speak to enterprise leaders every week and you know they're all asking the same thing.

You know, how, how do we actually use stablecoins?

What does it mean for cross-border payments and for payroll as you mentioned?

Um, and I think we commissioned a study to actually provide, uh, more insight into that.

So we commissioned, um, and surveyed 4500 people across 15 countries to understand how they're using stablecoins, um, to really move beyond the anecdotes, uh, to more kind of systematic user insights.

And we're finding enterprise, uh, customers and enterprise leaders are using these, these data points to understand how to add stablecoins to their payment stacks, which use cases to kind of focus on.

And it's really, you know, helping, helping them see that, you know, stablecoins are moving out of being niche into being the more into being practical, uh, and being used every day to pay for things and to, to, to get paid.

And speaking of which, I understand that the majority of people say they're ready to open a stablecoin wallet with their primary bank if offered, and that is do you think this is the biggest hurdle to adoption now infrastructure rather than consumer trust here?

What are the key concerns?

No, 100%.

And as we went through that, I think that's such an important insight, you know.

There's a, the demand outpaces access.

So customers would, you know, want to use stablecoins, but they, the way they integrate or or access or use those as stablecoins are not through their traditional banking and fintech apps.

So it's really the gap that these banks and fintechs can close.

Um, you know, when, when we kind of surveyed again, you know, about 42% of these customers would Uh, want to, you know, purchase or, or make a major lifestyle purchase with stablecoin is 28% are currently, currently do.

71% want to link cards.

So you can really see these are financial products that banks and fintechs are, are well placed to bring to their customers and their customers are asking for it, you know.

Not surprisingly, businesses report an increased ability to operate internationally using this technology.

So apart from the dramatic reduction in fees, what are the specific geopolitical or operational barriers that are being broken?

Look, I think it's always been difficult with payments in terms of moving payments across border.

There's always the speed element.

There's the cost element, but there's also the transparency, i.e., knowing where that payment is and, you know, where it is in, in its life cycle or in the chain, you know, moving around the money around the world, there's a lot of, you know, with the traditional system, there's a lot of Uh, intermediary banks at play and it's quite difficult to understand where that payment is, where it's being held.

I think stablecoins allow an instant real-time trackable, transparent way to kind of watch payments move around the world and increase, um, increase commerce, um, and kind of lubricate and make that, um, less of a friction experience.

And I do want to ask you about geography here.

So I understand the highest demand for stablecoin income is concentrated in Africa and APEC.

So what do you think are the unique local drivers and what would you say Western fintechs and banks are currently overlooking or haven't realized?

Yeah, I think, you know, in the emerging markets, you know, stablecoins have been adopted out of necessity, you know, where traditional payments have been slow, like we just mentioned, expensive, quite restrictive for various different reasons.

So you do find that stablecoins was uniquely or easily adopted by emerging market consumers and therefore, They wanted to transact in it and we were kind of early adopters of being paid in stablecoins.

Um, and I think, um, what, you know, US and developed market customers, um, you know, we, we, we, we mainly serve large enterprise customers across the US, EU and UK.

They're realizing that they can um access those customers in those emerging markets through an always on infrastructure like stablecoins to, to actually process payments and reach those customers, um, in a way previously it wasn't really, really feasible.

Yeah, and finally, before I let you go, I do want to ask you about use cases when it comes to stablecoins.

So is payment choice becoming a primary competitive advantage in retail?

Look, I think we're definitely seeing stablecoin checkout being added to those checkout experiences.

So whether they, you know, a consumer is using stablecoins, cards or another alternative payment method like a digital wallet, like a PayPal, you know, they, consumers definitely want choice at that.

At that point of checkout.

So we're seeing stablecoin being a competitive advantage for traditional merchants, traditional payment companies to add this to their stack alongside some of the traditional payments methods most consumers are used to.

So we definitely see it as a, and based on the data from the survey, you know, we, we see that propensity to want to pay with stablecoins, um, you know, on kind of, um, global, global websites and ecom platforms and and these sorts of things.

OK, Chris.

Well, we will have to leave it there for today.

So thank you so much for joining us and thank you so much for sharing all of your insights.

Thanks, Jimmy, thanks for having me.