Trailblazing the Future of Financial Services: WadzPay’s Visionary Approach to Stablecoin

I was introduced to bitcoin by a friend in 2016. I saw the powerful impact blockchain technology could have especially related to financial services. At the time I was working with a Fintech providing embedded financial services in emerging markets. The ability to send peer to peer payments securely over the internet without any banks or other third parties was obviously a big breakthrough. I then got hooked and decided I wanted to move my career in this space. In 2017 I was asked to participate in an ICO and then I started full time in 2019 with Nebeues – one of the very first crypto banks providing loans against your bitcoin. I then helped to launch Mintable, one of the largest tokenization and NFT platforms. This led me to Ripple, since they were one of our investors. I joined Ripple as VP for their new emerging business around CBDC, Tokenization, Stablecoins and DeFI. I ran a huge pilot of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and learnt a lot about the future of money. This led me to building a business plan for Stablecoins and I brought it to Anish at WadzPay— the rest is history.

WadzPay was started in 2018 with the vision of replacing the traditional payment rails that Visa and Mastercard use. So, we provide companies with payments solutions featuring our own blockchain network and provide an end-to-end technology solution to enterprises.

Stablecoins have emerged as the primary medium of exchange and transferring value in the digital economy. So, by incorporating stablecoins into our platform, we aim to enhance their use for everyday transactions, ensuring stability and reliability in digital payments.

WadzPay’s end-to-end solutions are designed to facilitate seamless, secure, and efficient payment processes, positioning us at the forefront of the evolving fintech landscape.

We will be launching two business lines initially: Firstly, “Stablecoin as a Service”. This is where we are a technology solutions provider to banks or government institutions looking to build their own digital currencies. I had a lot of experience doing this when we delivered the Palau Stable Coin (PSC) as a live project.

Secondly, we will be launching our own WadzPay stablecoin and the primary use cases for this will be

• Cross border payment,
• Settlement of transactions related to real world asset tokenization and trading, and
• Treasury services for enterprise customers.

The stablecoin space is indeed competitive, especially for use cases involving on/off ramps with trading and exchanges. However, WadzPay distinguishes itself by targeting segments and business models that are less saturated.
We are focusing on geographical areas with the highest growth potential, specifically emerging markets. This strategic focus allows us to leverage untapped opportunities and address unique market needs.

Where Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are concerned, we do not foresee any significant retail-level launches for at least another 3-5 years. Even when CBDCs become more prevalent in the stablecoins sphere, we believe our stablecoins offerings will continue to play a substantial role in the future of money. This gives us a critical window to establish a strong presence and build a substantial business. Our approach combines innovative technology, strategic market focus, and a deep understanding of the evolving financial ecosystem, positioning WadzPay to stand out in the competitive stablecoin landscape.

Due to compliance and regulatory reasons, the stablecoin business will operate as a standalone business for WadzPay under a different brand entity. We will strategically leverage WadzPay’s technology, customer base, and other assets to enhance the stablecoin’s functionality and integration.

For instance, within our tokenization business, we will use the stablecoins to settle trades with substantial transaction volumes, efficiently. This integration will enable seamless, secure, and swift transactions, adding significant value to our clients’ businesses.

We are initially planning to launch a USD-pegged stablecoin. This stablecoin will be backed by reserves held at a 1:1 ratio in cash or cash equivalents.

Mechanism:

• Pegging: The stablecoin will maintain its value by being pegged to the US dollar. For every stablecoin issued, there will be an equivalent amount of USD held in reserve.
• Reserves: These reserves will be stored in secure and regulated third party custodian institutions to ensure stability and security.
• Regulatory Compliance: Over the long term, we are committed to developing a fully compliant and regulated solution, where the jurisdiction requires it. This involves adhering to relevant financial regulations and standards to ensure transparency and security for our users.

By maintaining a 1:1 reserve ratio and focusing on regulatory compliance, we aim to offer a reliable and stable digital currency that can be used for a variety of financial transactions, enhancing the overall value and trust in our stablecoin.

There are progressive stablecoins around the world now and different stages of maturity. In particular, observing the regulatory framework in financial centres like Singapore, the Middle East (VARA, ADGM), Hong Kong and Europe (MICA) is key in our ensuring the right trajectory for WadzPay in compliance with general common denominators. The USA is another interesting zone where I do believe stablecoins regulation will be approved in the next 12 months, which would be another positive development to build our business around. We looking at all the options, but these things take time. In the meantime, we are actively studying and monitoring the compliance prerequisites required for us to get our stablecoins business up and running in the more developed jurisdictions, and engaging with regulators to obtain their blessings in due course.

Actually transparency in stablecoins will be better than there is with traditional commercial banks. Stablecoin regulations are set to be much more stringent than for fractional reserve banking, and stablecoin operators affirm their holdings and operations through attestations and regular audits. In comparison, commercial banks do not have this level of transparency or security; WadzPay will also engage blockchain technology to enable real-time verification of transactions and reserves and this is in line with the standards of tightly-regulated financial institutions. This technological advantage provides a level of transparency that is unparalleled in traditional banking systems, so these aspects of stablecoins will continue to shape the landscape of WadzPay’s operations in the new business.

Our goal in the next 2-3years is to be one of the leading players in the blockchain financial services space. We have a strong vision and robust roadmap of what we want to deliver and we have some very large and exciting contracts we will be delivering this year, that will ostensibly catapult us to greater heights from a capabilities perspective. I then anticipate a period of very rapid growth as we see a continual rise of mainstream adoption and the big use cases of tokenization and stablecoins increase in scale and revenue, internationally.