Fiserv plans to launch a digital asset platform and a stablecoin, FIUSD, later this year. It is partnering with stablecoin issuer Paxos and Circle for the technology, which will launch on the Solana blockchain. Additionally, it announced a collaboration with PayPal to make their two stablecoins interoperable.
Fiserv is a major payments firm with more than $19 billion in revenues and also provides banking systems to around 3,000 regional banks in the US. It serves 10,000 financial institutions and six million merchants.
Apart from stablecoins it plans to work with banks on deposit tokens.
“With our scale, reach, and technology leadership, Fiserv is uniquely positioned to advance stablecoin-powered payments and help democratize access to blockchain financial services,” said Fiserv COO Takis Georgakopoulos. “We believe FIUSD will provide our clients with the efficiency and optionality they need to thrive in the evolving banking and payments ecosystem.”
Georgakopoulos joined Fiserv last year after spending much of his career at JP Morgan. While he was head of payments, the megabank launched its Onyx blockchain unit (now Kinexys). His background brings relevant experience to this initiative.
A key takeaway from the announcement is the goal of interoperability. The payments firm wants to make its stablecoin interoperable with other stablecoins, and ensure its digital system works with conventional fiat systems. It described its stablecoin as “bank friendly”.
Last week the US Senate approved stablecoin legislation. The anticipation of this step triggered a flurry of reports of various large corporates such as Amazon and Walmart exploring the issuance of stablecoins, on top of PayPal, Visa and Mastercard already having infrastructure in place. A large payment provider such as Fiserv cannot afford to sit on the sidelines.
In fact, Walmart has a relationship with Fiserv. Last year Fiserv helped Walmart to implement consumer payments directly from their bank accounts using Walmart Pay. Direct bank payments help to reduce Walmart’s costs of processing debit and credit cards. Digital currency adoption will have a similar impact.
