In this episode of Stableminded, This Week in Fintech's stablecoin-focused series, Drew Rogers sits down with Tom Borgers, co-founder and CEO of Walapay, a money movement infrastructure platform that bridges traditional banking rails with stablecoin networks to enable faster, cheaper cross-border payments through a single API endpoint.

Tom brings valuable ecosystem experience from his four years at ConsenSys, where he worked closely with founder Joe Lubin in a chief of staff capacity and interacted with foundational projects like Metamask and Infura. His personal experiences moving money internationally between Europe, the US, and Japan planted the seeds for what would become Walapay's mission.

Founded approximately 18 months ago, Walapay has built a platform that connects banking systems with stablecoin rails, allowing businesses and platforms to move money seamlessly between these worlds. The company quickly expanded from Southeast Asia to Latin America and Africa, growing from $1 million to $400 million in annualized payment volume.

During the conversation, Tom discusses Walapay's evolution from initially focusing on contractor payments in emerging markets to serving three key customer segments: businesses with cross-border payment flows, fintech platforms like Decaf that provide dollar access through stablecoins to users in markets with volatile local currencies, and payment service providers seeking real-time settlement options.

Tom explains how their partnership with Dfns enables flexible custody models, supporting both self-custody solutions that remove liability from platforms and custodial wallets for businesses requiring named accounts. He also shares how Walapay is working with partners like Paxos and Bridge to help platforms convert idle deposits into yield-generating stablecoins, creating entirely new revenue streams for fintech businesses.

For the future, Walapay aims to bring more financial institutions and banks directly onto stablecoin rails, collapsing the numerous layers of intermediation in traditional cross-border payments. Tom emphasizes that with 90% of B2B payment flows globally still happening through banks and approximately $190 trillion in cross-border money flows, there's enormous opportunity to make this infrastructure more efficient.

Thank you to Dfns for sponsoring this season of Stableminded.

Dfns is the wallet infrastructure platform securing over $1 billion monthly, with zero hacks, and trusted by 130+ global fintechs, banks, and enterprises. From Fidelity to Coinbase, top players rely on Dfns to manage digital assets with unmatched security and seamless API integrations.

Watch the full episode on Youtube below!