The Payments industry’s “Henry Ford” moment

The world of payments is having its “Henry Ford” moment.

Traditional organizations in the industry, from payment service providers (PSPs) to banks, are still using the equivalent of horses for settlement and cross-border transactions. In contrast, innovative startups and certain forward-looking incumbents have embraced this industry’s Model T – blockchain technology.

The results that payments providers exploring blockchain have reported thus far can’t be ignored:

• 50% settlement efficiency gains over traditional payments rails
• Cross-border settlement times decreasing from days to hours

Over the last two years, I have spoken quite a bit about how blockchain should be viewed as just a new set of payment rails, and as a natural evolution of today’s payments infrastructure. They represent an evolution, one that is able to support an increasingly digital, interconnected global economy that demands 24/7, 365 settlement. That evolution is happening right now – from horses to the Model T – and stablecoins are what is making it possible.

Stablecoins, and the rails they run on, remove the friction (and middlemen) of traditional payments systems. The value proposition to your merchants and your business is clear: faster settlement times, cheaper transaction costs, greater transparency, and total control over the payments process.

But why take my word for it? Today, we are launching two new case studies that highlight companies that are making the switch from horses to cars – Worldpay and Bloxcross.

Worldpay: Revolutionizing Merchant Settlement via Stablecoins

Worldpay is the world’s largest payment processor, processing over $2.2 trillion in payments annually across 146 countries and 135 fiat currencies. As a business that is continually exploring innovative solutions to enhance their merchant experience and expand into new markets, Worldpay began to explore how they could leverage blockchain-based payments to substantially improve merchants’ capital efficiency.

Worldpay settled on Fireblocks to power its merchant settlement solution, creating the ability to settle with merchants 24/7/365 in T+0, enhancing operational and merchant capital efficiency. Merchants using Worldpay (such as Banxa and Crypto.com) have seen a 50% efficiency boost since Worldpay adopted blockchain-based rails.

Bloxcross: Using Stablecoins to Improve Cross-border Payment Efficiency

Bloxcross is a payments infrastructure provider that enables global businesses to quickly settle cross-border using stablecoins and blockchain rails. Bloxcross tapped Fireblocks to power their cross-border stablecoin settlement solution.

Traditional cross-border payments rails often resulted in multiple days-long settlement times. By pairing the Fireblocks platform with their proprietary Adaptive Intelligence Conversion (an AI-powered tool that optimizes currency conversions), Bloxcross has been able to reduce settlement times for their merchants down to just a few hours.

The pace of innovation within digital assets can be hard to keep up with. What is happening in payments now is like watching the future being built in real time.

As someone that comes from the payments world, I implore you to start working with digital assets, because transactions are not going to be done by horses for much longer – it’s time to start car shopping.

Fireblocks is already working with innovative incumbents such as Worldpay, Checkout.com, Visa, National Australia Bank, and ANZ, as well as disruptive B2B fintechs like Bloxcross and Reap.