SINGAPORE-BASED payments firm Triple-A will add PayPal’s stablecoin to the list of tokens its customers can use to pay merchants.
Triple-A, which is the first licensed crypto payments company in Singapore, aims to roll out support for PayPal’s stablecoin by the end of June. The firm currently offers payment services primarily in Bitcoin, Ether and stablecoins issued by Tether and Circle.
The expansion is another step forward for PayPal’s PYUSD, an experimental effort by the fintech sector heavyweight to challenge crypto rivals. Tether’s USDT is by far the dominant stablecoin in the crypto market, with close to US$110 billion circulating. That compares with just over US$200 million in PYUSD, which launched in August 2023.
Peak XV Partners-backed Triple-A won a licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2021 and saw payment volumes triple between 2022 and 2023. The company aims to more than double volumes again by the end of 2024, founder and chief executive officer Eric Barbier said. He declined to put an exact figure on volumes.
“PayPal has the firepower to make it available to a lot consumers at one go. Nobody has this power today,” Barbier said of PYUSD. He added that PYUSD has a chance “to be a dominant stablecoin.”
PayPal Holdings is one of the first large financial services companies to release a consumer-facing stablecoin, a type of cryptocurrency that is supposed to maintain a price close to that of the US dollar. Paxos Trust, the crypto startup, is the issuer of PYUSD.
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In November, PayPal received a subpoena from the US Securities and Exchange Commission demanding it produce documents tied to the PYUSD project.
Of Triple-A’s total payment volumes, 60 per cent is in stablecoins, with USDT the main contributor, Barbier said. Stablecoins often serve as a bridge currency, helping users shift funds between crypto and traditional cash. Customers can redeem PYUSD for dollars and use the stablecoin to fund purchases and buy other tokens. BLOOMBERG
