Revolutionizing Cross-Border Payments: PayPal’s PYUSD Expansion

Welcome back to Market Movers.

The opening bell.

The demand for faster, cheaper ways to send money across borders is skyrocketing.

PayPal just announced a massive expansion of its US dollar-backed stablecoin PYU USD, rolling it out to 70 markets worldwide.

Well joining me to weigh in is May Zabaneh, SVP, GM of Crypto at PayPal Good morning, Ma.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

So PayPal launched its PYUSD in the US back in 2023, and now you're expanding into 70 markets across the Asia Pacific region, Europe as well as Latin America.

So tell us why this was the right moment.

Yeah, we're super excited about this launch because what it really does is show the power of PayPal holistically as a network across the world and now enhances and drives even more engagement and capabilities for consumers and merchants to be able to utilize stablecoins and be able to earn, send, and spend around the world.

So we're really excited about this because it's a true application that adds true value back to consumers and merchants.

Let's talk about the everyday consumers.

So if a worker here stateside is sending money back to family overseas, we know that wire fees, traditional wire fees, and also remittance fees can also eat into those funds.

So how exactly does PYU USD change that experience for the average user?

Exactly, um, so imagine now you're sending money home and let's say it's to Colombia, um, usually exactly as you said it's a 6 to 10% fee that, um, which is really high for, um, for consumers, um, and eats into their savings, um, so now you could just send that same PYUSD from the US to Colombia you'd.

Receive it in PYUSD, same dollar value because it's 1 to 1, and then that user can whenever they want to offboard at the time that they want into their local currency, they could send it to others.

They can continue to hold it and earn 4% rewards.

So it really allows us economic freedom and flexibility for people to be able to have more control in their lives.

And nowadays fees seem to be everywhere whether or not we're talking about for commerce, for businesses, or for consumers out there.

But when we're talking about cross-border commerce, it has always been a headache for small as well as medium sized businesses because they often have to wait days or even weeks for funds to settle.

So tell us how accepting PYUSD impacts a business's liquidity as well as daily operations.

Yeah, so you know, small businesses are like the heartbeat of most economies, and so when you think about though they really live almost like paycheck to paycheck as the money comes in, they need it fast to be able to spend it to continue to grow their business and and drive profits.

And so the faster that money can settle for them, the faster, the more stability that it can be, especially if they do a lot of cross-border trade.

So being in a stable currency that continues instead of taking fees on every hop.

It really starts to give them the faster access to their money.

It gives them more profits that they can then use to continue to grow their business.

And so we get really excited about this because it really starts to help this true economic value back in the hands of small businesses and merchants as well as on the consumer side.

One of the historical hurdles with crypto as well as stablecoins has been the off-ramp and turning it into usable money.

So for users out there in these newly supported markets that were just announced, how seamless is it in terms of the process of conversion from PY USD into their local currency when it comes to everyday spending?

Yeah, it's, it's really important that there's more utility that and we'll continue to build more and more functionality for for different countries around the world, but you would be able to a user would be able to send it to others again, continue to earn, or they would be able to offer.

It into their local currency.

So we'll continue to drive more functionality and utility as the year goes on.

But, but that's what's really important to be able to give them that flexibility and options to do what they want with the with their the value that they have of their money.

And May finally we all know that trust is everything in finance and PYU USD is a US federally regulated stablecoin.

So as you roll this out to the remaining markets in the coming weeks, how important is that regulatory backing in actually driving global adoption?

And what do you think is the next frontier for PYU USD?

Yeah, so trust is really important when you think about your financial life.

And so the power of PayPal's brand, the recognition of it across the world, is really important for this launch because then enabling PYOSD, which is a digital asset currency, to be able to move within PayPal's network and provide more utility to users is Exactly what makes us the most powerful thing.

So as we continue to think and look forward, um, what, um, what we will continue to highlight and you'll continue to see us, uh, drive is just more distribution and more utility, um, for PYUSC in areas that really matter in people's lives in a commerce perspective around the world.

OK, Mai.

Well, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Always great talking to you.

I appreciate your time and thank you so much for your insights.

Thank you, Army, take care.