Panel discussion on PayFi (payment finance) featuring leaders from Polyflow, Visa, ARF, and Masari exploring how stablecoin-based solutions can reduce cross-border payment costs from 4-6% to under 1% while addressing regulatory, infrastructure, and adoption challenges in global finance.
A Stellar Development Foundation conference panel examined PayFi, the intersection of payments and finance enabled by stablecoins. Speakers from Polyflow, Visa, ARF, and Masari discussed how stablecoin payments can reduce cross-border transfer costs from 4-10% to under 1% and accelerate settlement from 4-6 days to hours. Key challenges include regulatory fragmentation across regions, banking resistance to crypto integration, fraud prevention, KYC infrastructure gaps, and the need for traditional financial institutions to develop new capabilities and mindsets. Solutions discussed include decentralized identity systems, Visa's tokenized asset platform (VTAP) enabling banks to issue stablecoins, and ARF's short-term working capital for payment settlement. The panel highlighted that while retail stablecoin adoption is growing, institutional and B2B adoption requires solving custody, treasury integration, and regulatory clarity issues.