Standard Chartered CEO cheers blockchain; payment firms scale stablecoins

• What's at stake: Payment firms are adding distribution partners to create networks for stablecoin payments market. 
• Supporting data: Thirty five percent of financial institutions said clients are asking for the ability to make payments using cryptocurrencies, according to American Banker's On-Chain Finance Report.
• Forward look: Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters said all transactions will soon be processed on a blockchain. 

As interest in stablecoins increases, payment firms are looking for ways to support crypto over a wider audience. For example, payments technology firm Worldline is the latest company to enter the stablecoin fray with a partnership with European stablecoin payment infrastructure provider Fipto. 

The two companies will explore how stablecoins can improve settlement and payment services across Europe through various, unnamed use cases while making sure they are interoperable with existing infrastructure. 

"Our ambition is to advance the next generation of payment solutions, where virtual and traditional digital money coexist seamlessly, and to co-create with our partners and clients to deliver new, impactful use cases," said Thibault Pele, head of digital currencies at Worldline, in a statement.

"Collaboration allows us to accelerate our capabilities and reach in promoting stablecoin-based solutions, and to turn this innovation into tangible opportunities for our clients from merchants to banks."

Payments companies have been racing to develop technology and partnerships that will advance stablecoin adoption now that the GENIUS Act has passed. Peer-to-peer payments firm Zelle issued a similar statement last month saying it's working on a stablecoin initiative, without providing details about how it would fit into the wider ecosystem. 

Banks are also reporting demand for cryptocurrency and stablecoins. Forty-seven percent of banks and credit unions said their institution's clients were asking for general information about these assets, followed by 35% who said clients were asking for the ability to make payments using cryptocurrencies, according to American Banker's On-Chain Finance Report. Twenty-seven percent said that customers were asking for institutionally provided custody of digital assets. —Joey Pizzolato

JEAN CLAUDE COUTAUSSE/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Western Union adds to its Digital Asset Network

A week after announcing plans to launch its own stablecoin, Western Union has partnered with stablecoin infrastructure company Rain to process payments via Western Union's Digital Asset Network – an initiative intended to bring scale to cryptocurrency.

The Ramp collaboration will enable cash payouts at certain locations in Western Union's network of about 500,000 access points. The two firms hope to demonstrate stablecoins can be widely used, solving a barrier to mainstream adoption, according to Rain. Western Union's own coin, USDPY, will be issued with Anchorage Digital on the Solana blockchain. Both USDPY and the Rain integration are designed to lower costs for cross-border transactions by using stablecoins or some other enabling technology. 

While stablecoins are drawing lots of attention, few financial firms have launched their own stablecoins, leaving plenty of upside. American Banker's on-chain research found that only 2% percent of financial institutions have launched a stablecoin, with 2% piloting and 4% planning to pilot a stablecoin. Another 4% are planning to partner with other institutions to issue stablecoins. —John Adams 

Standard Chartered's Winters: Blockchain will support all transactions

As firms like Western Union, Worldline and dozens of others plot stablecoin strategies, the underlying technology is also racing forward. Bill Winters, CEO of the U.K.-based Standard Chartered Bank, this week told an audience at Hong Kong Fintech Week that blockchain technology will support nearly all transactions. The executive did not give a time frame, but said banks will face pressure to adapt to blockchain, cryptocurrency and other digital assets. He also predicted that all money will be digital, or tokenized similar to a cryptocurrency, and that will require the financial system to be "rewired." 

As part of its own adjustment, Standard Chartered recently hired Jennifer Lassiter as head of digital assets for Europe and the Americas. She joined the bank from the Digital Dollar Project, where she was executive director of the foundation, and is also a founding member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s Office of Innovation Tech Lab. As banks develop their digital asset strategies, they are also figuring out how to measure investment. According to American Banker's research, most bank executives expect ROI from cryptocurrency programs after 18 months, with outside partners playing an important role and internal upgrades to existing risk structures to mitigate fraud and other security challenges. —John Adams 

Yuriko Nakao/Bloomberg

ACI Worldwide acquires European A2A fintech

ACI Worldwide has acquired Greek open banking fintech Payment Components for an undisclosed sum, the company said Monday. 

Payment Components, which was founded in 2014, develops software for account-to-account payments, application programming interface management and financial messaging. It has more than 65 banks and financial institutions across 25 countries using its technology, according to ACI. 

ACI Worldwide plans to integrate the technology into its ACI Connetic product, a cloud-native platform that integrates card processing, A2A payments and fraud prevention. 

"ACI's acquisition of Payment Components will further strengthen the capabilities of ACI Connetic, defining a new standard for how banks drive payment transformation and compete in the digital economy," said Thomas Warsop, CEO and president, ACI Worldwide, in a statement. "Beyond the cutting-edge technology, we are also impressed by the talent of the Payment Component' team, whose dedication to innovation aligns with our vision to shape the future of payments." —Joey Pizzolato

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Ripple adds Mastercard, other partners to bolster 'fiat' payments

Cryptocurrency technology firm Ripple is teaming with Mastercard, WebBank and Gemini to support traditional currency settlement using Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin. The three firms will use the XRP ledger, a Ripple controlled blockchain that powers payment transactions. 

In practice, the initiative will enable RLUSD, operating on the XRPL, to be used to process settlements between Mastercard and WebBank, the issuer of the Gemini credit card. WebBank, a Utah-based institution, lends primarily to small businesses and technology companies, while Gemini is a cryptocurrency firm. 

The companies hope to be an early mover in a process in which a regulated U.S. bank settles card transactions using a regulated stablecoin on a public blockchain. 

"Mastercard continues to build the foundation for the next generation of payments," said Sherri Haymond, global head of digital commercialization at Mastercard, in a release. 

Mastercard has entered into several partnerships over the past two years in an effort to expand its own services business while making digital assets more accessible to a mainstream audience. Ripple, which has built a global network to support digital assets such as stablecoins, has long used its blockchain technology to shorten payment processing by reducing reliance on third parties such as correspondent banks. Ripple this week also drew a fresh $500 million investment from Fortress Investment Group and Citadel Securities, alongside Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Brevan Howard and Marshall Wace, valuing the company at $40 billion. —John Adams 

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg

A2A crypto payments hit Germany

Coinbase and open banking fintech and Visa subsidiary Tink are teaming up to offer account-to-account cryptocurrency payments in Germany. 

The partnership will allow Coinbase users in the country to buy and sell cryptocurrency directly from their bank account, according to a Tink release. Tink provides data sharing technology. 

"This partnership adds a new service for Coinbase users in Germany, giving them more choice in how they manage their crypto purchases," Thomas Gmelch, head of commercial, Central Europe at Tink, said in a statement. "Having a Pay by Bank option makes it possible to check out quickly and securely on a mobile device, directly from a bank account." 

Coinbase has been working to integrate into more traditional financial services as it looks to expand the reach and capabilities of its exchange. In July it worked with JPMorganChase to allow Coinbase users to directly link their JPMorgan bank accounts to the Coinbase wallet. The crypto company also has a deal with PNC that allows the bank's customers to buy, hold and sell crypto through Coinbase's crypto-as-a-service offering, and it entered the credit card business with a co-branded American Express card that shells out bitcoin rewards based on purchase volume. —Joey Pizzolato

DailyPay

DailyPay names Andrew Brandman COO

Employer integrated earned wage access fintech DailyPay has named Andrew Brandman its new chief operating officer, effective Nov. 3. 

Brandman will report to DailyPay CEO Nelson Chai and will be responsible for revenue, payments operations, new markets and the company's customer office, according to DailyPay. 

Brandman has spent 26 years in financial services and eight years in software-as-a-service. Most recently he served as global vice president of global regulated industries at automation fintech ServiceNow. Prior to that, he served as chief customer officer at Fenergo and Salesforce, and chief administrative officer at CIT and NYSE Europnext. He has also worked at Credit Suisse, Banco Santander and UBS. 

"With decades of experience at the intersection of operational and customer focused excellence at globally-recognized financial services and technology companies, Andrew brings a wealth of knowledge to DailyPay and will be a valuable asset in helping accelerate our growth," said Chai. —Joey Pizzolato

Johan Jeppsson/Bloomberg

Klarna's card reaches more European countries

Swedish financial institution and buy now/pay later lender Klarna has hired card-issuing firm Marqeta to expand its Klarna Card to 15 additional European markets. 

The expansion follows the launch of the Klarna Card in June 2025 and follows a number of product additions, such as savings accounts. Klarna is diversifying its products to fuel an international expansion and to accompany a U.S. stock listing. Recent collaborations include a deal with JPMorganChase to offer Klarna's products over the bank's 900,000-strong merchant network. Klarna will add to a card network that already includes Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the U.S. —John Adams  

Nathan Laine/Bloomberg

Visa expands agentic payments to freight

Payment technology firm Transcard and Visa have launched a finance platform to support payments and working capital for shipping companies. 

The product was built using Visa's virtual card technology and is designed to streamline cash transfers between freight companies and airlines, and to automate booking and other processing steps. Transcard and Visa are additionally working on agentic commerce for B2B clients. The initiative will include using AI agents to perform manual tasks tied to working capital lending and payment orchestration, which refers to automatically routing payments to the fastest and least expensive option.

Visa and Mastercard are both developing agentic AI uses for different types of businesses, hoping to boost adoption of new forms of artificial intelligence as part of the card networks' services strategies. 

"This partnership strengthens our embedded B2B payment and working capital solution and delivers intelligent payment orchestration with agentic AI functionality," said Greg Bloh, CEO of Transcard, in a release. —John Adams