Stellar co-founder Jed McCaleb is taking on a more public role after his co-founder's resignation, focusing on enterprise adoption. Barclays and Deloitte are building payment prototypes on Stellar's network to serve underbanked populations in Africa, with Nigeria as the initial target market.
Stellar co-founder Jed McCaleb has assumed expanded public responsibilities following his co-founder's departure, marking a shift toward enterprise engagement. The company is demonstrating early traction with major financial institutions: Barclays Africa is testing a feature-phone payment system with 100 high school students in Johannesburg, while Deloitte is building both retail and wholesale transaction prototypes on Stellar's network for unnamed banking clients. McCaleb outlined Stellar's three-phase roadmap to serve Africa's 2.2 billion unbanked people, starting with Nigeria to build network effects. The company is positioning itself as a low-cost alternative to existing payment rails, with Deloitte indicating readiness to onboard additional bank customers.