Host: Today's capital markets segment is brought to you by Alpaca. While digital dollars are dominating conversations surrounding payments at this year's Money 2020 conference, and new benchmark research from Pioneer proves they have become vital commercial infrastructure for institutional as well as multinational enterprises, as well as digital marketplaces. Now, according to this research, 69% of surveyed organizations currently use stablecoins. Operationally, and 82% expect stablecoins to become an integral part of their core financial infrastructure within 3 years. Joining me live on the ground in Vegas is Roland Barry, VP of Stablecoins at Pioneer. Good morning. Thank you so much for joining me.
Roland Barry: Thank you for having me.
Host: Well, we are here day 3 of Money 2020, and without a doubt enterprises are embracing stablecoins. But according to your report, what was the key finding that surprised you the most?
Roland Barry: I think we were just surprised at the scale that people were starting to adopt it. I think we've all heard lots of hype for a while, um, there's been a lot of enterprises looking at piloting, testing. I think there's a big discussion around what does value look like for different use cases. One of the like recurring themes in the report was actually the number of data points around people trying to move now to scaled production. But there's still some very underlying challenges that have to be solved for this to reach mass scale.
Host: So tell us a little bit about some of these uh things that need to be solved and also how platforms are utilizing stablecoin for B2B payments.
Roland Barry: Yeah, so I think I start with the use cases, uh, we've seen for a while the form factor, right? So you or I want to be paid in stablecoin, we might be in a country that that doesn't have dollar access, she might be in somewhere in Latin America, and platforms had to adopt it as a payment rail. I think we've seen the maturity of, of the adoption increase now, so we're seeing more kind of Treasury use cases materializing. Actually people are still delivering Fiat and a Fiat experience, but the settlement on the back end is now being powered by Stablepoint. And actually in the report, those drivers tend to split between either how you actually pre-fund and move money around the world. I think one of the data points I liked was actually the level of complexity in your business, like how complicated your cross-border infrastructure is and requirements, is that actually North Star indicator with high correlation to your level of adoption. And I think the last one which we're kind of still seeing early days is actually the FX pricing. So when you're at scale, can I really find like cost benefits in FX corridors? And some enterprises are still there. I think the blocker though that you mentioned, sorry, is it more still around a lot of the regulatory clarity, a lot of the infrastructure and workflows. This needs to be hidden behind the platform almost, and for that to happen, it has to be fully integrated into these businesses.
Host: And of course, here at Money 2020, we've been hearing plenty of partnership announcements, as well as how people are actually using uh stablecoins on the ground. And I think when it comes to the FX market, we know there's been a lot of volatility this year, and depending on which country you're in, volatility might be higher than other nations. So when we're talking about where we are right now for stablecoins, uh, what do you expect to see moving forward?
Roland Barry: I still think the, the segment that we were kind of focusing around, so looking at this enterprise adoption, I still expect to see more adoption, more infrastructure being driven. I think there's a lot of great companies, especially here, focusing on very specific use cases, very specific tooling. I think that still has to prove out at scale. And I think that's what we're excited to see. How do we create the same experiences and fear for these global enterprises that are reliable, that are accountable. Um, I think that's what's got to come next.
Host: Mhm. And I do want to expand on some of the operational roadblocks that exist right now. So what needs to happen in order to clear some of these hurdles?
Roland Barry: I think, I think it depends on sort of where you sit across the stack, but I think some of the stuff that we've certainly been looking at and talking to partners around, there has to be clear accountability at all stages of the sort of money flow for a business. And when something goes wrong, you typically, it's the best way to find these, right, in the unhappy flows. And I think there you start seeing what are the operational flows to manage returns and chargebacks, how do you think about reconciliation. If you're in the treasury function or a large enterprise, you're still running one platform to manage all of your financial infrastructure. You don't want to have a forked set of systems and software to manage digital assets versus fiat. I think as these two become more integrated, we'll see this.
Host: Yeah, and I'm sure you've been having plenty of conversations on the ground, Roland, with uh stakeholders as well as peers and other organizations. So what are you hearing on the ground right now?
Roland Barry: Yeah, so I think it's great. I, I was surprised it's actually a very busy money 2020. Um, I think there's a lot of people focusing now on The how, so how do I solve this? What are the use cases? I think a lot of the discussion in the early days was focused on very niche markets potentially, and actually this has now become a much broader conversation, and there's some great companies here building on those sort of scaled solutions. That's exciting to see.
Host: And for the layperson who is watching right now and they're trying to understand where we are with stablecoins, how would you explain what builders are working on right now and why they're doing what they are?
Roland Barry: Yeah, so I think as the demand and the use cases now have become more mainstream, people are working on creating sort of seamless user experience. I mean, again, at least from the perspective of a pioneer, the end customer, whether that's an SMB that's accessing those financial services or it's a large marketplace or platform. The experience has to be seamless, and I think the trust is probably one of the biggest questions here, like a lot of these companies are new, a lot of these companies have entered the space with some really great sort of businesses and propositions, but now they need to be tested under duress, and I think that's kind of where a lot of the builders here are focusing on creating the right tooling, the right systems and services to kind of manage and build the trust for the end customer.
Host: Yeah, and I think trust is a word that we've been hearing a lot, and I was also surprised to hear that word being used so much, but it's not surprising, especially when we're talking about agentic AI also entering the conversation. So, what do you think is necessary in order to actually bridge that trust gap?
Roland Barry: It's, it's interesting. I think. Probably a couple of bits. So, so from pay in his perspective as well, right, we've worked with global sort of clients moving a lot of money. We've encountered, as you do over the years, a lot of sort of stress as you go through these processes. I think some of that's still to come for some of these businesses. It's the, the, the proof is in the pudding a little bit. I think as companies now focus on the sort of end to end flow of money and all of the operational workflows that support that, actually, you as a stakeholder or a buyer sort of buying these services have greater comfort. I think, and we've integrated some of these products into our platform, and as we've gone through that journey, obviously the, the technical, like the APIs and service levels are improving from these providers. I think it just takes a bit more time and really just more scale being pushed through these product these providers.
Host: And Roland, finally, before I let you go, what will the future of stablecoins actually look like?
Roland Barry: I think the cliche answer to that, which everyone sort of harks back to is like we won't be talking about it, but I, I, I think there is some truth to that, right? Like as these become integrated into the full like fiat flows, the interoperability is there, we're actually using stablecoin or other digital assets in the most effective way for the right jobs. Personally, I'm super excited about how we can have more sort of programmable payments in our stacks, new treasury tooling and things like that, which become far more effective at moving money globally.
Host: Well, Roland, I appreciate your time and thank you so much for joining us here at Money 2020.
Roland Barry: Thank you so much for having me.
Host: My pleasure.
