“Many Payments Firms Are Already Using Stablecoins”: Neo’s CEO

“Half of the payments on the chain are using stablecoins at some point,” Laurent Descout, the Founder and CEO of Neo, told Finance Magnates, adding that the holding period could be minimal, “often immediate release,” and “that’s becoming extremely common now.”

Founded in 2017, Neo provides forex and payment solutions to corporates. It specializes in “very large transfers” and its offerings include multi-currency accounts “designed for corporate purpose only.”

Descout highlighted that such use of stablecoins has “grown tremendously in the last three years,” pointing out: “As a client, you don’t necessarily see it because you give a mandate to your payment service provider to channel the funds, say US dollars from London to somewhere else.”

Neo has yet to use stablecoins, but it supports other companies using it.

“We do have a lot of other payment companies and clients using stablecoins at some point in the payments chain,” Descout added. “We definitely plan to use stablecoins as a means of payments in some corridors by 2025.”

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Descout revealed that his company has over 300 corporate clients and processes an average of GBP 500 million monthly payments. In 2023, the company handled about GBP 6 billion in payment volume and generated about EUR 5 million in revenue.

Neo is headquartered in Barcelona, with offices in the United Kingdom. Interestingly, the UK is also a significant market for the company as about 40 percent of its clients are from there, while others are primarily from Western European countries. The company is presently expanding beyond the European markets and has sizable operations in Canada with plans to expand to Singapore.

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“Companies Need to Diversify Their Banking Partners”

Although there are a few other players like Neo in the “$150 billion a year market,” according to Descout, the company’s primary purpose is to challenge the dominance of banks, whose services are “extremely expensive with very poor customer service.”

Additionally, trust in the banking system felt the repercussions from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which had many corporate clients, last year. Although the ripple effect of SVB’s collapse did not reach Europe, customers have become cautious.

“Companies need to diversify their banking partners,” the CEO of Neo added. “The diversification strategy was used to be true for credit, but I would say it should be for operational purposes.”

“We believe that this is a trend that every company should follow and not rely on one partner. We see more crises coming, and the environment is becoming more and more unstable, whether it is due to geopolitical interest rates or many things that we don’t even think about. So, the corporate treasures must come to reality and work with several things.”

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“Build Your Payment Corridors Very Carefully”

Pointing out the risks of international payments infrastructure, Descout said that “a lot of networks connecting together [and it] increased over the last years.»

“When you think about a dollar traveling from London to Singapore, it may have crossed maybe five or six banks or PSPs,” Descout explained. “That generates many risks: a payment being blocked by one of those banks, a payment reference being lost or scratched by the system of one of those banks. Of course, that doesn’t mean you will lose your money, but it may mean that your money is blocked somewhere or isn’t received by whoever you are trying to pay.”

“That’s why you need to work with payment partners who are extremely well connected to the network and have access to the tools to track the payments and ensure that information leveling is correctly done.”

Pointing at the challenges of the payment providers, Descout added: “You need to build your payment corridors very carefully. There is no point in having a fast solution if, on the receiving side or the issuing side, the quality of the exchange and the liquidity are not there.”

He further believes there will be “challenges in the coming years around interconnectivity of clearing systems.”

“The interconnectivity of major clearing systems, and in some cases more local ones, will drive a lot of changes because it’s becoming more and more doable to collect monies somewhere and pay somewhere else. I think that will bring many interesting things ahead in terms of international services and definitely for crypto payments supports.”

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“AI Is Bringing a Lot of Analytics Capabilities”

Like other industries, artificial intelligence (AI) impacts payment flows. And according to Descout, AI is “already transforming” the payments industry.

“The main advantage of AI now is going to be on the compliance side of things,” he said. “We are, as a payment company, bound by strict regulations. We are required to collect more and more information as a payment institution to analyze more and more information on payment changes, which are complex as sometimes we don’t even see the entire payment change.”

“AI is bringing a lot of analytics capabilities, and we can look at thousands of transactions and spot anomalies, which may trigger some questioning or some analysis all in a couple of seconds. AI is definitely going to transform the compliance side of our business, making payments quicker and services better.”

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