Host: Stablecoins mature into institutional settlement vehicles. The world is debating whether these blockchain-based payment rails will completely bypass legacy plumbing like SWIFT or ultimately become integrated into traditional banking networks. New York-based Fin.com emerged from stealth with $20 million in seed funding led by Uber co-founder Garrett Camp with strategic backing from Coinbase Ventures. It has built a connected system linking local payment rails, stablecoins, liquidity and compliance across more than 50 countries. Joining us live this morning here at the New York Stock Exchange is Fin.com co-founder and CEO Nabil Alamir and co-founder Mustafa Dar. Gentlemen, great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me.
Nabil Alamir: Thank you so much for having us.
Host: Well, I think it's significant that we're all here at the New York Stock Exchange talking about this. So first and foremost, give us a sense of where you are with Fin.com, especially on the heels of the latest announcement.
Nabil Alamir: Thank you so much for having us once again. It's an honor to speak to you. So we have been in stealth for 12 months. We have bought 7 companies. We have several CEOs working for us. We have leaders for India, for Nigeria, and around the world because we believe money movement requires, like a plane taking off and landing, it requires two airports. And American airports are great for money leaving. We wanted to now go ahead and build amazing airports around the world so money can land very well. Sometimes it will manifest into going to a bank in Pakistan. Sometimes it's a wallet in the Philippines, and this is what we're focused on. We call it last mile delivery for stablecoins, and that's been our focus and we're really excited to announce ourselves to the world, share our strategy, and speak to you.
Host: Yeah, and Mustafa, I do want to bring you into the conversation. So now that you've talked about the why, tell us about the how.
Mustafa Dar: Well, you know, stablecoin is an emerging space, so we, in order to build a global, you know, scalable stablecoin company, it requires multiple lanes to converge, you know, being from regulations, compliance, government licensing, and also distribution. So for us putting that together is key, being immigrants and being from these markets and focusing on the emerging markets that have the scale.
Nabil Alamir: Yeah, I think one of our secret sauces, we're from Bangladesh, we're from Pakistan, so, you know, SF and New York are our new homes going back home. And connecting the dots is something a lot of tech companies in the US have missed and that's where Mustafa and I really come together and worked hard with our 200 team members to really go and understand, you know, what are the local challenges. If there's 60% cash pickup in a country, we need to integrate with the cash pickup locations. That's what we are really excited about.
Host: Yes, and you bring up an important point because when we think about how the payment space is working right now, the global economy is interconnected. So given your backgrounds, we all know that even though you come from one place, you might travel elsewhere, and I think emerging markets is a key opportunity here. So tell us what you think are the bottom.
Nabil Alamir: Right now, you know, it comes back to that airport analogy again, right? We have seen these banks use SWIFT for a couple of decades now. It's a glorified messaging system, a really great switchboard, but it is a switchboard, right? While since the pandemic, the world has gone global, payroll has gone global, sourcing, you know, import export, all of it has gone global. Money movement still has been difficult. I'll give you an example. We have 50 employees in Bangladesh. We pay them through our own integration with this amazing wallet called NSafe. Before that they were waiting 5 to 7 days to receive these payments. With us now it's instant. So our team is very, very excited to make sure that is an incredible integration and we're doing that with wallets around the globe.
Host: And I do want to ask you about the latest seed round and the partners that you have brought in as well as the investors.
Nabil Alamir: We're excited. So the seed round was led by Expa, founder of Uber, Garrett Camp. Also Coinbase Ventures was involved. We had Second Sight Ventures. We had family members from the Saudi royal family, Nigerian royal family. And we have multiple, you know, very high net worth individuals that all played a strategic role into the seed round.
Host: And of course I do want to ask you about your outlook on the heels of this seed funding. So what is your five year outlook?
Nabil Alamir: Our 5 year outlook would be, you know, we believe there's around a billion people around the globe still not in the banking system. We want to fix that, right? Like, a country like Bangladesh is not on PayPal. Hundreds of millions of users not on PayPal. They should be some of the first users on PayPal. True for Pakistan as well. So we go in and we dig in and we figure out what is the challenge, and the challenge is compliance. We come in, orchestrate that in between, and say, hey, let us help you with that, right? So our goal in 5 years, if, you know, these billion users are all part of the banking system via their cell phone, via their local bank, via their local pickup place, that is a win for us. And, you know, we look at the next 5 years, but we also look at the next 50 years and hopefully our goal is to be the chip, if you will, that a lot of banks sit on top of, right? I'd like to compare us to Nvidia. Like, if we can be what OpenAI and Anthropic and all these amazing brilliant companies are built on top of, that's a huge one for us. So we think we can go ahead and be the software upgrade for the financial institution system.
Mustafa Dar: We get to see both sides of the financial system. We get to see the opportunity and scale of the market, but we also get to see the limited banking access and the restricted payment infrastructure, which gives us an understanding of where the system breaks to help grow and build what we're building.
Host: And for viewers out there who may not be familiar with Fin.com, what would you like them to know?
Nabil Alamir: I would like them to know that there is around 825 million users we're already impacting. If we do our job right, you can't see us. We sit behind some of your favorite consumer fintech apps, your favorite banks. You're, you're, you're, you know, you're sending money back home to your mom or dad. We're part of the process, right? And we think that is very inspiring. That's very important, and we're just very grateful to be part of that journey, that part of those amazing stories that we grew up on and now we get to go ahead and have an impact.
Host: And finally, before I let you go, there's been a lot of focus on the regulatory landscape. So when we're talking not just about the US but also outside of the US, what are some of the challenges and how are you guys addressing those challenges?
Nabil Alamir: Let's talk about two recent events, right? Let's talk about Clarity Act for a second. Even without that passing, you know, 95% of global stablecoin is backed by dollars. Like, that is the American capitalism working right now. Imagine how much more will succeed with more clarity, with more regulation. Our founders from this country will excel on that. So that's something we need to, at some point, wrap up. It's a matter of when, not if, and we're very excited about, you know, the conversation progressing there. And if you talk about, like, you know, what's the conversations happening between China and US right now, that conversation can go two ways. It can become, you know, the relationship can become friendlier between the two nations or become a little bit more unfriendlier, right? Either way we are impacted because we're either figuring out, you know, more off-ramp with the Chinese economy or we're figuring out, hey, where is that, if there's more restrictions there, does that go to Nigeria? Does that go to India? And we're building more technology there. So, you know, we want clarity in some of these conversations so we can figure out where we're building.
Host: Well, Mustafa, as well as Nabil, it was great having you here, and I think it's a befitting conversation, especially as the UN General Assembly kicks off here in New York. So appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Nabil Alamir and Mustafa Dar: Thank you.
