Digital Assets, Real Impact – Where Fintech Meets Web3: Celebrating the Innovators Changing Lives

This series, in conjunction with Innovate Finance,  spotlights the founders and companies proving that decentralised finance can be a genuine force for good - keeping governments honest, making NGO projects more accountable and giving people the power to move money instantly from their phone, no bank account required. This week, we sat down with Shantnoo Sexana, CEO of Encryptus - a payments infrastructure provider that is transforming how money moves across borders. Using blockchain rails to connect businesses in developed economies with recipients in emerging markets, Encryptus can settle transactions in seconds rather than days and at a fraction of the cost charged by traditional corridors. What sets Encryptus apart is not just the technology - it is the philosophy behind it. While major players like Visa, Stripe and PayPal have begun using stablecoins for back-end settlement, Encryptus is one of the few actively passing those efficiency gains on to customers, offering a flat 1.5% fee or fixed pricing regardless of corridor.

“We are still facing the same payment issues we were facing 15 years ago. That is the problem Encryptus exists to solve."

1. Can you introduce yourself and Encryptus? What does the company do, and what is the core problem you set out to solve?

I am the CEO of Encryptus, a payments infrastructure provider that enables licensed financial institutions to adopt digital asset rails for cross-border payments. We deliver enterprise-grade stablecoin settlement, crypto payouts and conversion services across more than 80 countries and 41 currencies.

I come from a payments background. For almost a decade I kept hearing the same complaint from colleagues and partners - moving money across borders without touching the SWIFT network was either impossible or absurdly expensive. I recently reconnected with a friend who worked alongside me in the early days of payments. I asked him how things were going. His answer was sobering: "We are still facing the same issues we were facing 15 years ago."

Encryptus exists to solve this problem, using blockchain rails to connect businesses in developed economies with recipients in emerging markets through regulated institutions. We have integrated with banks and financial institutions in emerging markets to develop real-time payments infrastructure, offering instant liquidity on local rails. A core part of our model is USDA - our own regulated, fully US-dollar-backed stablecoin, issued through our US-licensed entity Anzens. That combination means we move money on the blockchain using our own payments network.

Our API network offers not just fiat liquidity but a layer of compliance, monitoring and governance not widely available from most leading industry players. Our customers - fintech companies, wallets, exchanges, payroll providers and blockchain networks such as Cardano and XDC - plug into our infrastructure so their end users get faster, cheaper access to money, without ever needing to understand the technology underneath.

2. $150 trillion moves across borders annually, yet the average cost of a cross-border transaction is still 6.45%. Encryptus settles at a flat % fee regardless of corridor. How have you been able to achieve that, and what does owning both a regulated stablecoin and a global payments network mean in practice for your customers?

The traditional cross-border payment chain is built on correspondent banking. A transaction from Kenya to Japan can pass through four or five intermediaries before it arrives, each one clipping a fee. SWIFT was designed for a different era. It works, but it was never optimised for speed or cost in emerging markets.

We bypass that chain entirely. When a payment enters our network, value moves as stablecoins across blockchain rails, settling in seconds rather than days, before being converted to local currency at the destination and paid out by a local partner - more often a bank or regulated financial institution. Because we own both the stablecoin and the network, we control the full transaction lifecycle. There is no third-party toll at every hop.

Our average actual cost per transaction can vary between a few cents and a single-digit US dollar. We offer a flat 1.5% or even a fixed price per transaction depending on volumes, because we believe the efficiency gains of blockchain should be passed on to the end user, not absorbed as margin. Companies like Visa, Stripe and PayPal have begun using stablecoins for back-end settlement, but they have not passed those savings through to customers. That is what attracted Dilip Ratha, formerly at the World Bank where he spent years calling out the true cost of remittances, to join our team as an advisor. When he looked at what we had built, his reaction was straightforward - this is the first company he had seen that could prove the 6.45% figure does not have to be the norm.

3. Encryptus positions itself as a payments infrastructure provider, not a crypto company. Why is that distinction important? How do you abstract the blockchain layer so that end users and businesses don't need to think about the technology behind the transaction?

Because the problem we solve is a payments problem, not a blockchain problem. A major payments company we were onboarding once told me they don't care which blockchain USDA is on - as long as the stablecoin is regulated, helps save cost and moves money faster, the chain does not matter. If it is a farmer hoping to receive money in Africa, they care that it arrives in the right mobile wallet within minutes instead of days, and that it costs a fraction of what they pay today.

We are blockchain-agnostic. We have integrated with Cardano and support other chains and stablecoins like USDC on XDC, Polygon and others, but the chain is infrastructure, not identity. Everything we offer is available via API. A payroll company, a remittance provider or an e-commerce platform can plug our technology into their existing stack without their customers seeing a single wallet address or gas fee. They see a payment that arrives faster and costs less. Banks and regulated financial institutions are our partners for local liquidity - we never source liquidity from crypto exchanges, so the compliance and counterparty standards are the same as any traditional payment flow.

4. Can you share a real-world example of how Encryptus is being used today? Who is using it, and what impact has it had on their ability to move money across borders?

We are working with partners in the US, Middle East and Africa. The payment-sending markets are generally developed economies, while recipients are in emerging markets. However, we are witnessing a trend where emerging markets have started sending payments out too. With industrialisation and global talent movement, they are slowly becoming senders as well. We recently met with a company processing over a billion dollars a month through traditional rails. By the end of the conversation, they wanted to move onto our network because the cost and speed advantages were immediately obvious. These are not theoretical gains - they translate directly into lower fees for the businesses and individuals who can least afford to lose margin on every transaction.

5. What needs to change in the broader payments ecosystem to ensure that billions of people still underserved by traditional finance can access faster, cheaper and more reliable cross-border transactions?

Regulators need to recognise that stablecoin-powered payment rails are not a speculative asset class - they are infrastructure. The UK government's work on stablecoin regulation is a step in the right direction, and the US GENIUS Act adds strength to the ecosystem. But policy needs to keep pace with deployment, not lag behind it.

Incumbents need to start passing efficiency gains to the end user. When a large payment platform settles internally using stablecoins but still charges 6% on withdrawal, the technology is working but the benefit is being captured by the platform, not the person sending money home.

The industry needs more open networks. Our infrastructure is regulated, compliant and accessible via API. That is the model that will bring the next billion users into the formal financial system - not by asking them to understand blockchain, but by making it invisible inside the payment they are already trying to make.