Host: We are live here from Definition at Token 2049 in Singapore. Of course, this is where institutions and builders in tokenized credit, yield and stablecoin meet. Of course, it is powered by Accountable, the verification layer bringing institutional finance on chain. And joining me now is Andrew Ullah, Global Head of Sales at Aquanow, a digital asset infrastructure provider. Andrew, welcome to FinTech TV.
Andrew Ullah: Thank you for having me. Lovely to be here. It's a pleasure.
Host: So, first of all, tell us about Aquanow. What does the company do and who do you serve?
Andrew Ullah: So Aquanow is an institutional service provider in the crypto space. Uh, we primarily function as a bridge between traditional asset rails, you know, think banks, neobanks, and, uh, the crypto world. So what we do in a nutshell is abstract away the complexity of dealing with the crypto rails and we service, again, banks, neobanks, um, brokers, companies who want to either accept or pay on stablecoins, um, PSPs and basically, um, bring all that infrastructure into a plug-and-play format for them to, uh, get involved without having to do the deep integration work themselves, right?
Host: And as Global Head of Sales, you speak to your clients every day. What, yeah, I guess so. What are they asking for the most right now?
Andrew Ullah: Uh, I would say it's two tiers of conversations. One is like the clients that we already have, and so what we're interested with them is, you know, um, you know what new corridors are you looking at? Maybe what new stablecoins are interesting for, you know, you guys to support to serve your needs based on, you know, evolving regulations or what it might be. And then, um, a lot of the conversations with, you know, the kind of crypto-curious or new clients, um, you know, they want to know like, how much work is this going to be, um, you know, how dirty do they have to get their hands, so to speak, um, to kind of reap the benefits of this technology, um, and so a lot of what we do is just assure them that, you know, Aquanow came from, uh, kind of mostly traditional finance background and so everything we've built is to make it as seamless as possible for these counterparties to plug in.
Host: And how are your clients using, um, stablecoins in their businesses today?
Andrew Ullah: Yeah, um, I would say the biggest use case that we are seeing is in cross-border remittances, um, so we have a lot of clients that, you know, maybe they on-ramp domestically in the US and then they want to off-ramp, you know, be it in, uh, Middle East or Asia, and so a lot of those flows obviously are sped up and made a lot more transparent through stablecoins, um, and so they're sending payments, you know, at a fraction of the cost and much quicker than they would go into traditional banking rails, um, you know, equally if you're a merchant who wants to service places where, you know, either the currencies are pretty volatile or banking is hard to come by, um, you know, we can offer a solution where you can suddenly open up the whole world as your client base, um, and accept stablecoin payments, um, so we kind of show a QR code and then they get the fiat to dispense to their bank account. So it basically opens up the whole world and, you know, one API call, which is the greatest benefit, yeah.
Host: And do you have a panel today here at Definition?
Andrew Ullah: I do, yeah.
Host: Your panel actually asks who is really in control of stablecoin, right? Is that correct?
Andrew Ullah: It's supposed to be a surprise.
Host: So if this is the case, I mean, why is that such an important question in your opinion?
Andrew Ullah: I think with any new technology people are wary, you know, people are comfortable with banks even though, um, you know, I think a lot of people don't really understand what is happening to your money when it's at a bank, but it's, you know, there's a Lindy effect, you know, people have been using banks for hundreds of years and so anytime something new comes along, people are going to have questions about it like suddenly you're holding this token, but you know why does it have value and what if something goes wrong, um, and so I think, you know, it's up to the issuer to really show that, you know, your stablecoin is just as good if not better than a bank deposit, um, so we are a distribution partner for Universal Digital, um, which has, uh, a Central Bank of UAE registered US dollar stablecoin in Dubai, um, and so in the case of Universal Digital, um, the same regulator that regulates the banks is also, you know, looking at the stablecoin so that kind of, um, the accountability in the, in the risk profile ends up becoming almost the same, which is kind of one of the big value propositions for USD, right?
Host: And, and how hard is this conversation, you know, trying to convince, um, someone who is not familiar with stablecoin that it is just the same as banks?
Andrew Ullah: We're actually seeing that people are, there's definitely some education, but they're coming to us for the benefits of it. It's not like we're out there like, how do we sell this thing, you know, stablecoins, you know, everyone has talked about the value proposition. They're faster. They're cheaper. You don't have to tie up liquidity because they can move 24/7. They're not tied to banking hours. So it's more getting clients comfortable that the risk profile is essentially the same. So you, you know, you get all these benefits effectively for free, um, so it's, you know, I'm Global Head of Sales, so I should be careful, but they, they sort of sell themselves.
Host: Oh, amazing. OK, so a company can build, you know, the full stack itself, adopt an existing token or plug into someone else's infrastructure, but how do you help, uh, clients choose?
Andrew Ullah: Um, choose in terms of like building the stack themselves or, um, choose?
Host: I mean, take us through the details of the whole process when you onboard a client. What, how do you help them find their way if they're not familiar with the industry?
Andrew Ullah: Yeah, so we try to kind of simplify it and, you know, the easiest first question is like what are you trying to do? And so, you know, if we have a client that says, you know, I'm based in Dubai and I've got, you know, a bunch of payments coming in and, um, you know, what's the best solution here, then we probably point them to USDU. Um, we tend to see regional differences and preferences. Um, you know, a lot of our clients in Asia tend to work with Tether first. Um, a lot of North America tends to be kind of USDC first. Um, so it's, it's really a matter of like what makes sense for the use case. Sometimes they come in and they know what they want, um, and sometimes we have to point them a little bit, but ultimately it's not so much what they're using, it's solving the problem and what is the best tool to do that. And Aquanow, you know, we're fairly agnostic, obviously we're a partner of Universal, so where it makes sense, we do, uh, we do put clients there, but we're happy to use any stablecoin that solves the client's problem in the most efficient way, right?
Host: And, and, and what do you think gives an institution, um, the confidence to rely on a stablecoin provider?
Andrew Ullah: It's a good question. Uh, there is a bit of lindiness now, I think, with the industry, you know, trying to convince institutions to use Tether 10 years ago is a little bit hairier than today. Um, you know, there's 400, 300 billion of total stablecoin supply at this point. Um, the chart, as they say, is up and to the right, so the proof is kind of in that we've already had a bunch of stress tests, um, you know, we saw SVB, you know, go down and, and, you know, USDC had like a little scare but I, I think all of these little growing pains make the industry stronger, um, and honestly the use case for a lot of our clients, they're not parking their capital in stablecoins and sitting there, so if you think of the risk profile of using a stablecoin as a rail, it's actually quite small because, you know, you're kind of getting on and then you're getting off. I do think we're moving to a world where more money will sit in stablecoins and as yield products and kind of other financial services are accessible that way, but for now, you know, just telling clients like, hey, you know, this is the total cost, and if you're really scared, like, you know, I think you can take two hours of USDC risk, uh, net net, it's, it's an easy sell, right?
Host: Andrew, this is, um, this has been a great conversation. Thank you very much for coming on FinTech TV. Appreciate it.
Andrew Ullah: Thank you.
