On this bonus episode of Tokenized, Simon Taylor, Head of Content & Strategy @ Sardine, is joined by Chris Harmse, Chief Business Officer and Co-Founder @ BVNK and Nabil Manji, SVP, Head of Fintech Growth and Financial Partnerships @ Worldpay to discuss Worldpay partnering with BVNK to enable stablecoin payouts for merchants, the technical breakdown and more!
On this bonus episode of Tokenized, Simon Taylor, Head of Content & Strategy @ Sardine, is joined by Chris Harmse, Chief Business Officer and Co-Founder @ BVNK and Nabil Manji, SVP, Head of Fintech Growth and Financial Partnerships @ Worldpay to discuss Worldpay partnering with BVNK to enable stablecoin payouts for merchants, the technical breakdown and more!
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This episode is brought to you by Visa
A world leader in digital payments, Visa is bridging the gap between traditional financial institutions and innovative blockchain networks, helping players in the payments ecosystem navigate the ever-evolving world of tokenized fiat currencies with confidence and ease. Learn more at visa.com/crypto.
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We’d also like to remind you that the views or opinions of our contributors today are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the companies they are representing. Nothing we say should be taken as tax, financial, investment or legal advice, do your own research!
Music by Henry McLean
Unknown Speaker 00:00
Simon,
Sy Taylor 00:10
welcome to tokenized. The show focused on stable coins and the institutional adoption of real world assets. My name is Simon Taylor. I am your host for today, author of FinTech brain food and head of strategy over at sardine. Joining me on this bonus episode of token eyes is Chris arms, the Chief Business Officer and co founder of bvnk. Third time lucky, Chris
Chris Harmse 00:36
indeed, good to be back.
Sy Taylor 00:40
Third time's the charm. It definitely is. Alongside him is a returning guest, second time for nabumanji, who's SVP and head of FinTech growth and partnerships at WorldPay. How's it going to Bill?
Nabil Manji 00:52
Good thing. Simon, excited to be back, excited
Sy Taylor 00:55
to have you before we get into the show. Everybody. Just a quick reminder, views and opinions of contributors are their own and might not reflect those of the companies. Please don't take anything we say as tax or legal advice or investment advice. Do your own research, and if you listen to the last show, you'll know Chris and ABIL are guests. We talked a lot about there's a stable coin for everyone, but we should hear some thoughts now about their awesome news, and this news is incredible. World pay, who handle $2.3 trillion of payments annually across 146 countries, has partnered with bvnk to integrate stablecoin payouts across its merchant network. Merchants can now fund accounts in USD, euro and GBP, but can pay out globally in seconds via stablecoins. It eliminates supplement delays so from three days down to three seconds, and Chris, I'd go to some PR quotes Now, typically, but let's discuss this live. How big of a deal is this for you guys to be working with somebody as big as world? Pay? Yeah,
Chris Harmse 02:13
I think it's a major one for us. And you said it in the headline, you know, we'll pay you 2.3 trillion in payments volume, making this one of the largest real world integrations of stable coins to date. And it's right up our alley in enabling those, you know, those payments use cases. So I would say will pay is not really new to stable coins. You know, they've been in the space for quite some time, but I think this is a new use case that they're really seeing demand for, and definitely hand over to the will. To give us a bit more insight on what he's seeing from the merchant base, yeah, I
Sy Taylor 02:41
kind of want to step through that use case like merchant payouts. Tell me what that looks like today and how stable coins help.
Nabil Manji 02:47
Payouts is funny. It's like the Sleeping Giant Within WorldPay. As you guys mentioned, we're doing about 2.32 point 5 trillion in payment acceptance volume around the world, but we also do almost $200 billion in payouts volume around the world. And what I mean by that is payout transactions that oftentimes have nothing to do with a payment acceptance transaction at the other end. So think about a marketplace paying out its sellers every day or every week, or a gig economy company paying out its creators again on a regular cadence. And so what we're essentially doing here with BB and K and are excited to launch, is the ability for those clients of WorldPay, whether they're a gig economy company, a marketplace or really just any business, giving them the ability to pay out a third party around the world with stablecoins. And as you mentioned, Simon, we talk frequently, and I'm sure you've talked extensively here on tokenized about the benefits of that. So we're excited to bring stable coins as a payout option to that client base on our global payouts platform. And
Sy Taylor 03:53
Chris, how does this work under the hood? What's actually happening? Where's the stable coin meeting world pay and how's all of this connecting? Yeah,
Chris Harmse 04:02
so, I mean, I think the core thing for BB and k is, like, because it's this full stack solution, being not just the tech stack, but the licensing, as well as, like, tier one banking partners, and bringing that all together to deliver an enterprise grade solution for World pay was really, I think, key. And what we really did, you know, it's integrated into worldpays payouts platform. You know, in that platform today, as Nabil said, there's a push to card payment, there's a push to digital wallet or push to account sort of out, and we bringing in that push to stablecoin, and what it really looks like under the hood is, you know, WorldPay will integrate DV and case APIs into the platform, you know, bulk fund in USD, euro or GBP, and those stable coins can go from a merchant to an end user anywhere in the world, instantly and on multiple different blockchains and multiple different
Unknown Speaker 04:49
stable coins.
Sy Taylor 04:50
And that end user could be just any compatible stable coin wallet. Is there a limit to the networks involved? And where are you? Seeing the demand Nabil from your client base. Is it sort of long tail markets? Is it g20 or is there no pattern to it? Yeah, I would say it's
Nabil Manji 05:09
a little bit early in terms of the specifics. But what I would say, at least from a vertical perspective, is it's broad based. We've got marketplaces, as I mentioned, that are interested in paying out sellers. We've got enterprises that are interested in paying third parties, like vendors, for example, in potentially tricky corridors, or where traditional Fiat rails are less expensive. Online media companies needing to pay out their customers who want to withdraw balances, things like that. So based on the early signs, I would say the demand from a vertical or use case perspective is broad based. And my guess is we'll probably see a mix of clients who are a trying to use the solution to solve challenges in those corridors where stable coins are just much more efficient or much more quick than the Fiat alternative. But then I would expect we'll also see use cases in the g20 or more developed economies where people just want to hold stable coins. You know, it's really interesting. This morning, actually. JP Morgan came out and said, you know, they expect yield bearing stable coins to be 50% of the stable coin market going forward. And so, you know, maybe there's gonna be people in the US and Europe and others that, because the yield potential would rather just be paid in stable coins so they can start farming real quick. Chris,
Sy Taylor 06:18
what are you looking forward to over the next few weeks and months with this you're going to be learning, along with the guys, are you going to be hopefully expanding use cases, and where do you think this market kind of payout use case evolves from here?
Chris Harmse 06:33
We're working really closely with Nabil and the team on picking those initial launch verticals and how we go to market on that integrations are currently underway, hopefully into launch, you know, quite soon, and from there, I think, you know, once you lose, you know, some of the stuff we're seeing, and I'm sure Nabeel is seeing it in the world pay merchant base as well. Is we obviously powering stable coin payouts for other platforms like deal and and multiple other PSPs across some of those, you know, use cases that Nabil did mention. But those payouts are now being delivered into a consumer's hand everywhere and around the world. Once they have those stable coins, they want to spend those stable coins. So we actually started to see that flywheel kick in where, hey, I have stable coins, I want to pay for my Netflix subscription. So we're actually seeing some of the payouts use cases starting to drive, you know, payment acceptance in stable coins as well. So we're quite excited about that. And I think PSP is approaching the space very early, starting probably similar to, you know, will pay dead settlements for merchants, which is more of a B to B Treasury use case, rolling out into payouts, payouts, feed pains, and then you've got come back in. Let's add pains inside the the merchant gateway. So that's, I think, the, definitely the trend we're seeing across the PSP space. It's a
Sy Taylor 07:43
helpful roadmap. Start learn through Treasury, where you're in a bit more control. It's a bit closer. You know both sides of that, transactions, payouts, clear demand, very, very clear opportunity, well understood as a step two and then a step three. That's when you start to see the pay and flywheels really kick in. All right, gents. Well, if there's anything else you want to jump in with now, just let me know what people can expect. Or, if not, we can close out here.
Chris Harmse 08:10
Yeah, I think I'll just leave it like a closing remark, really. You know, stable coins aren't the future of payments. They really are the present. You know, this is happening now. It's not some pie in the sky in the future. You know, we're just really exciting to bring stable coins at scale to a network like gold pays.
Sy Taylor 08:25
Yeah, there's a lot of concerns that it's all hype. But when I look at the data, when I see the logos, I do start to think, now, this does feel a little bit different. So you make a great point. Chris and nabil's presence speaks volumes, doesn't it?
Nabil Manji 08:40
Yeah, I would just add one thing. I think we're kind of getting to that point in the market, and particularly within payments, where stable coins aren't just a crypto thing anymore. They are, as Chris said, they're like a payments and financial services thing now. And I'm really excited about the partnership, and, you know, some of the early interest and adoption that we're going to see, I'm excited about the flywheel that Chris mentioned. I think that's going to be kind of a discussion. That we can have, you know, over the coming months and years. And I'm also just excited around, you know, what's going on some of the stuff we spoke about previously, like the genius act in the US and stuff, and I think all these different bits and pieces are just adding to this, you know, legitimacy and use case narrative that expands beyond the kind of crypto native use cases. So that's what I'm excited about. Over the next few months, we
Sy Taylor 09:25
will have you all back, I'm sure to talk about it more and keep tracking it as it becomes more of a finance thing, it doesn't get any less exciting. Let me tell you, the nerdier and more payments nerd you get, the happier I get. That's for absolutely sure. Well, thank you everybody for watching. Thank you everybody for listening, Chris, where can people find out more about you? And bvnk,
Chris Harmse 09:44
bvnk.com and Chris Holmes on LinkedIn,
Unknown Speaker 09:47
and Nabeel, yeah,
Nabil Manji 09:49
worldpay.com and Nabil mangy on LinkedIn. You'll find me@fintechbrainfood.com
Sy Taylor 09:54
sardine.ai or Simon Taylor on LinkedIn, and you'll also find more episodes. Have tokenized if you hit subscribe, and if you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and like it really, really helps us comment, leave us a review. It really, really helps others find the show. If you enjoyed this, we'll see you soon.