Stabledash Live · · 24 min
Inside Payoneer's Stablecoin Stack: SMB Payouts, Off-Ramps and Choosing a Partner
With 
Rowland Berry
Key takeaways
Rowland Berry says that in the last twelve to eighteen months, businesses have started using stablecoins as their transaction currency to pay suppliers.
Payoneer entered stablecoins through a partnership with Bridge and pairs it with a payout network it built over twenty years.
Berry sees stablecoins as clearest for long-tail markets, while fiat stays competitive in major corridors.
Watch the episode
Summary
Berry describes how stablecoin demand at Payoneer moved from freelancers hedging into dollars to small businesses paying suppliers, and why fiat still matters in major corridors.
Rowland Berry has spent seven years at Payoneer, a cross-border fintech platform that helps large platforms pay out to suppliers and sellers, mainly in emerging markets. In a Stabledash Live interview, he described how stablecoin demand at the company has moved from personal hedging to everyday business payments.
From bitcoin requests to business use
Rowland Berry says early demand at Payoneer came from the contractor and freelancer side, where customers asked for bitcoin and trading features. It then moved to people hedging and getting access to dollars, and then to paying others with stablecoin on the card. The turning point, he says, came in the last twelve to eighteen months, when businesses began using stablecoins to pay suppliers.
Some customers fund ad campaigns with stablecoins so they can keep paying around the clock. "They don't really care that it's stablecoin," Berry says. They need rails that run twenty four seven. He says small businesses are driving adoption today, while larger marketplaces and enterprises are earlier on the maturity curve.
“You don't always have to be right if the customer kind of wants it. So we need to find a way, obviously, in a compliant and sensible way to to provide it.”
Rowland BerryThe last mile
Host Zach Hughes pointed to Circle's acquisition of Tazepay and Rain's Global Payout Rails launch as moves to solve last-mile delivery. Rowland Berry says Payoneer's payout network, built over twenty years, is part of its core proposition. For him, the hard part is compliance and operations: handling rejected payments and managing source of funds across the banks that supply off-ramps. He adds that regulation is changing market by market and requirements change day by day.
Partners and choosing fiat
Payoneer entered the space through a partnership with Bridge, using its licenses and infrastructure to get a product to market quickly. Rowland Berry warns that many off-ramp offers turn out to rely on the same provider underneath. Most flows today are USD-backed coins off-ramping into local currency, and he says the company has started exploring other tokens.
Berry says stablecoins do not have to beat fiat everywhere. In major corridors, liquidity is good and rates are competitive through fiat. In long-tail markets, off-ramp access is still tight, so the ability to use fiat flows is an advantage.
Rowland Berry's approach puts customer demand first. "You don't always have to be right if the customer kind of wants it," he says, provided it is offered in a compliant way. Looking ahead, he says he wants to see payment velocity increase and products grow more complex as Payoneer builds infrastructure for small businesses and platforms that goes beyond payments.
Payoneer, Bridge, Circle, and Tazepay come up most.
- People
- Rowland Berry
- Drew Rogers
- Malcolm
- Zach Fowler
- Zach Hughes
- Companies
- Payoneer
- Bridge
- Circle
- Tazepay
- Western Union
- Airbnb
- Amazon
- eBay
- Rain
