- Key insights: International payment firm Payoneer is joining a handful of payments companies that have launched or are planning to launch their own stablecoins.
- What's at stake: Cross-border payments are one of the top use cases for stablecoins.
- Forward look: Payoneer plans to launch its stablecoin once it receives approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish its own bank.
The folks at Payoneer like to joke that the company was the first stablecoin long before the technology became the talk of the town.
"If you think about our business, we help these global businesses who are operating across borders collect funds in one jurisdiction, we issue a balance to that customer, we safeguard the funds that back that balance, and then we facilitate payouts in all of the markets they operate in," Rob Morgan, head of stablecoins at Payoneer, told American Banker.
That's not much different than how stablecoins operate, Morgan said.
It just makes sense, then, that Payoneer would launch its own stablecoin — which it is calling PAYO-USD — once it receives approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to
"Payoneer's customers really sit squarely within where we think stablecoin can make an impact for global [small and medium-size businesses]," Morgan said. "When you're doing cross-border, when it becomes more complex, that's when these technologies really shine."
The New York-based fintech is one of many payment companies, along with
"Payoneer accounts [are] global, multi-currency balances. Our customers pay and get paid in a variety of currencies. We want them to be able to do the same in stablecoin," Morgan said.
But Payoneer's stablecoin is designed to spur increased transaction volume revenue rather than interest income on reserves, a model championed by
"Our goal is not to distribute this token around the world; it is to simplify our customers' experience," Morgan said. "They have one balance. Payoneer is the one that owes them the funds, not a third party downstream. And we have the ability to then take those funds, because we hold the reserves, and off-ramp them more quickly and push fiat around the world."
PAYO-USD will not be listed on any public exchanges, and also will not be sent outside of Payoneer's own ecosystem.
Third-party stablecoins including Circle's USDC and Tether's USDT are already supported on Payoneer's platform and digital wallet, which the company launched in February in partnership with
"From a customer perspective, we're in market through partnerships today," Morgan said. "As we move forward, we're obviously hopeful for an approval quickly on the banking charter. That will let us do more of the stablecoin services ourselves, create a more direct relationship with the customers and convert that balance into a PAYO-USD balance instead of the existing third-party stablecoin."
Payoneer's AI and stablecoin capabilities were a
"M&A has been a key focus of Nuvei over the years, with a focus on companies that expand technical capabilities, expand its presence into new verticals, or help drive scale," William Blair analysts said in a research note.
