Podcast
Stablecoins, AI Agents, and the Future of Global Banking
The a16z Show
- Stablecoin Native Global Finance Stack
- Jeeves is a stablecoin-native financial operating system offering cards, payments, and treasury across 25 countries.
- Over 50–60% of Jeeves’ international settlements already settle directly on stablecoin (USDC) powering recent growth. (Time 0:03:40)
- Built A Centralized Ledger To Own Local Experience
- Jeeves built a central CMS ledger that connects 50–60 partners and maintains ledgers in 25 countries to control statements and reconciliation.
- That layer enabled issuing local cards, producing statements in <24 hours, and higher acceptance rates because Jeeves sits directly on the rails. (Time 0:04:53)
- Use Licenses As A Defensible Product
- Treat licenses as product moat: secure local regulatory licenses to own accounts and full customer flows.
- Owning infrastructure plus licenses expanded Jeeves’ margin from ~40% to north of 80%. (Time 0:08:25)
- Focus Upmarket To Scale Depth Over Breadth
- Jeeves focused on mid-market and enterprise customers rather than thousands of small businesses to enable deeper cross-sell and higher retention.
- In 2023 they deliberately debanked small customers to concentrate resources on larger accounts. (Time 0:10:32)
- LatAm Is Primed For Stablecoin Adoption
- Stablecoins are a lived experience in LATAM (e.g., ~60% usage in Argentina) making dollar-denominated, instant transfers highly valuable.
- Jeeves packages this as ‘Jeeves Instant Pay’ while hiding crypto complexity from CFOs. (Time 0:15:19)
- How Stablecoin Cut Cross Border Time
- Before stablecoin, cross-border required multiple correspondent banks and slow handoffs; now Jeeves collects local currency, mints USDC, and pays out faster.
- Customers choose between Swift/MT-103 rails or fast ‘Jeeves Instant Pay’ in-product. (Time 0:17:57)