Paysend Partners with BVNK to Expand Stablecoin Payments

Paysend Partners with BVNK to Expand Stablecoin Payments
Paysend Partners with BVNK to Expand Stablecoin Payments

Hey Payments Fanatic!

Paysend has partnered with BVNK to introduce stablecoin payments and settlement capabilities across its consumer and enterprise platforms.

For Paysend, the partnership represents a strategic step toward expanding its digital payments ecosystem and reinforcing its position in the cross-border payments market. For BVNK, it is an indicator of continued demand for stablecoin infrastructure.

Delivering trusted, scalable interoperability (connecting legacy systems, fiat, and multi-chain digital currencies) is now the critical priority. 

Payment providers that master this integration early will gain a massive head start in the race to make tomorrowโ€™s cross-border payments better, faster, and cheaper.

Last Wednesday, we covered Mastercardโ€™s acquisition of BVNK, and todayโ€™s news is more proof that the industryโ€™s biggest players are betting on hybrid finance.

Keep scrolling ๐Ÿ‘‡ Thereโ€™s more updates across the Payments landscape below. I will be back tomorrow in your inbox.

Cheers,

Marcel


NEWS

๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ Mastercard promotes Rahul Agrawal to Engineering Leadership Role. In this expanded role, Rahul will lead software engineering strategy, platform development, and technology innovation initiatives, with a focus on building scalable, secure, and high-performance solutions to support Mastercardยดs evolving global digital payment ecosystem.

๐ŸŒ Paysend partners with BVNK to expand stablecoin payments and cross-border settlement. By integrating stablecoin rails, Paysend aims to enhance the speed and flexibility of its global payments network, which already spans more than 170 countries and supports over 80 currencies.

๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ Venmo has expanded globally by integrating with PayPal, allowing users to send and receive money with PayPal users across 90 markets. The move simplifies international peer-to-peer payments using just a phone number, reducing friction and expanding Venmoโ€™s reach to a global audience.

๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฌ Moniepoint acquires Orda Africa to enter Nigeriaโ€™s $19bn restaurant market. The deal folds Orda into Moniebook, Moniepointโ€™s point-of-sale and business management platform, giving the FinTech a direct play in a food service sector valued at $50 billion across the continent.

๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡น M-PESA Ethiopia expands into tax collection with Amhara region deal. The agreement paves the way for the over 450,000 individuals and businesses across Amhara to pay taxes through M-PESA, which relies on in-person services that have historically entailed manual processing and multiple visits to revenue offices.

๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Cape Town startup Happy Pay raises $5M seed round to scale the first ad-subsidized payments network, to deliver cost-free Buy Now Pay Later payments for SA consumers. The startup is building what it calls an ad-subsidized payments network, shifting the cost of instalments to the merchants and brands that actually benefit from the resulting sales.

๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ฟ Visa supports digital payment innovation in Tanzania and Ethiopia. The new capability allows M-Pesa customers to make contactless payments using their Android mobile phones at any Visa-enabled point-of-sale terminal, both locally and internationally.

๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ท BTG suspends Pix after hacker attack diverts R$ 100 million. The case adds to a series of breaches targeting third-party providers, underscoring increasing pressure on the ecosystem to strengthen real-time fraud detection and security measures.

๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ India and Bhutan collaborate on UPI-linked postal remittances. The initiative is designed to enhance financial connectivity and make digital remittance services more accessible to citizens in both countries. As part of the collaboration, the two countries signed a MoU, establishing a formal framework between India Post and Bhutan Post.

๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Deloitte Canada and Stablecorp announce strategic collaboration on industry-first stablecoin infrastructure for Canadian financial institutions. Leveraging the inherent advantages of blockchain technology, speed, immutability, traceability, and efficiency will enable solutions that are robust, compliant, and scalable.

๐ŸŒ Cathay Pacific expands global partnership with Adyen. This expansion marks a significant milestone, with Adyen now providing direct acquiring services for the airline in markets including Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Japan, and most recently, India.


GOLDEN NUGGET

๐…๐ข๐š๐ญ ๐‘๐š๐ข๐ฅ๐ฌ ๐ฏ๐ฌ ๐’๐ญ๐š๐›๐ฅ๐ž๐œ๐จ๐ข๐ง ๐‘๐š๐ข๐ฅ๐ฌ โ€” ๐ฐ๐ก๐š๐ญ ๐œ๐ซ๐ฒ๐ฉ๐ญ๐จ ๐œ๐š๐ซ๐๐ฌ ๐š๐ซ๐ž ๐ซ๐ž๐š๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐œ๐ก๐š๐ง๐ ๐ข๐ง๐  ๐Ÿ‘‡ Created by Arthur Bedel ๐Ÿ’ณ โ™ป๏ธ

Fiat Rails vs Stablecoin Rails

At checkout, everything looks the same.

โ†ณ Tap. Approve. Done.

But behind the scenes, the settlement path can be completely different... and that's what stablecoin/crypto cards are really changing:

โ†’ Not the user experience...

โ†ณ The ๐ซ๐š๐ข๐ฅ๐ฌ.

1๏ธโƒฃ Most "crypto cards" still settle like traditional cards:

โ†’ user pays

โ†’ issuer converts assets to fiat

โ†’ merchant receives fiat

โ†’ settlement happens on fiat rails (T+1 / T+2)

So yes, it works globally. But it still inherits the classic constraints:

โ†ณ timing, intermediaries, cost, and conversion friction.

2๏ธโƒฃ Now compare that with ๐ฌ๐ญ๐š๐›๐ฅ๐ž๐œ๐จ๐ข๐ง ๐ฌ๐ž๐ญ๐ญ๐ฅ๐ž๐ฆ๐ž๐ง๐ญ:

โ†’ user pays

โ†’ stablecoins are routed to a merchant wallet (i.e. Dfns)

โ†’ settlement happens on supported blockchain rails

โ†’ merchant receives stablecoins (often T+0)

= Same card swipe.

โ†ณ Completely different settlement engine and once settlement becomes programmable, the implications get wild:

โœ”๏ธ faster merchant access to funds

โœ”๏ธ new treasury + liquidity models

โœ”๏ธ real-time cross-border settlement

โœ”๏ธ lower operational friction (reconciliation, prefunding, trapped cash)

โœ”๏ธ stablecoins becoming a real global liquidity layer

This is also where the "modern stack" shows up: you need secure wallet infrastructure and policy controls to move value at scale. Platforms like Dfns are becoming critical infrastructure for #issuers and #fintechs to manage wallets, keys, permissions, and transaction governance behind these flows.

"๐€๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐œ๐š๐ซ๐๐ฌ ๐š๐ซ๐ž ๐ง๐จ๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐ž ๐ฌ๐š๐ฆ๐ž" โ†’ crypto cards" are not all built the same. The differences matter:

โ†’ ๐œ๐ซ๐ž๐๐ข๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ญ๐ซ๐ฎ๐œ๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ž (debit / prepaid / credit)

โ†’ ๐Ÿ๐ฎ๐ง๐๐ข๐ง๐  (prefunded vs sell-at-transaction-time)

โ†’ ๐œ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ญ๐จ๐๐ฒ (custodial vs non-custodial)

โ†’ ๐š๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ž๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฉ๐ฉ๐จ๐ซ๐ญ (stablecoins vs multi-asset vs yield-bearing)

โ†’ ๐ข๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ž๐ซ ๐ญ๐ฒ๐ฉ๐ž (exchange, neobank, protocol, fintech)

In other words:

2 cards can look identical in a wallet...

โ†ณ but behave completely differently in settlement, economics, and risk.

And on the merchant side, we're also seeing new models emerge โ€” like Breeze โ€” rethinking how merchants can accept and settle using stablecoin rails (and what "Merchant-Of-Record" can look like in a programmable world).

๐Ÿšจ One stat in this infographic that jumped out:

โ†ณ Visa now represents ๐จ๐ฏ๐ž๐ซ ๐Ÿ—๐ŸŽ% of onchain card volume.

That's a big signal that stablecoin settlement through card distribution is scaling fast and that networks are taking this seriously.

โ†ณ

๐Œ๐ฒ ๐ญ๐š๐ค๐ž:

1๏ธโƒฃ Cards are still the best distribution layer in payments.

2๏ธโƒฃ Stablecoins are becoming the best settlement layer.

3๏ธโƒฃ Stablecoin / Crypto cards are simply the bridge between the two.

Source: Artemis


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