Stack Chats Episode 3: The Future of Payments and the Rise of Money 3.0‍

In this episode of Stack Chats, Notabene CEO Pelle Braendgaard sits down with Kevin Lehtiniitty, CEO of Borderless.xyz, to explore how stablecoins are evolving from speculative assets into functional payment infrastructure. Kevin shares insights on building the foundational rails that connect global stablecoin networks to local financial systems, unlocking seamless interoperability and real-world utility. Watch the full episode below:

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From the limitations of traditional cross-border payments to the promise of “Money 3.0,” this conversation dives deep into how Borderless is making stablecoin adoption practical—and compliant—for fintechs, wallets, and regulated entities.

📌 Topics include:

• Bridging stablecoin networks with local payment systems
• Regulatory interoperability and compliance-by-design
• What “Money 3.0” means for the future of finance
• Building for developers and scaling across jurisdictions

Pelle and Kevin set the stage by looking at where stablecoins fit into today’s financial landscape and why so many companies are turning to them as part of their core infrastructure. Their conversation moves from the challenges businesses face today to the emerging solutions shaping the next generation of payments. What follows is a look at the key themes they explored and why they matter for anyone building or using stablecoin-based systems. Read on for a breakdown of the rest of the discussion points:

Why global payments still feel local

Once the conversation begins, one theme emerges right away. Even though stablecoins let value move across the world as easily as sending an email, the financial systems around them remain deeply local. Stablecoins operate on global, always-on networks. But banks, licensing regimes and national currencies still function in country-by-country silos.

Kevin has watched this play out throughout his years in the industry. Whether working on issuance, custody, collateral or payments, the same challenge appears: as soon as stablecoins touch the real world, companies encounter a maze of regulatory requirements, fragmented liquidity and inconsistent banking access.

This is the problem Borderless.xyz set out to solve. Rather than becoming another regional on or off ramp, Borderless focuses on the connective layer between them. A single integration gives companies access to diverse liquidity providers, payment partners and banking channels across many markets. Instead of every business rebuilding the same integrations repeatedly, Borderless abstracts that work into one unified network.

The hidden cost of pre-funding in global money movement

A major theme Pelle and Kevin explore is the role of pre-funding in today’s payments ecosystem. For most cross-border flows, especially in emerging markets, companies must lock funds in multiple partner accounts to simulate real-time settlement.

This creates several issues:

• Large amounts of capital sit idle across bank accounts in many countries.
• That capital is exposed to local banking risk.
• Treasury teams face constant operational pressure to balance and rebalance accounts.

Kevin shares examples of remittance companies holding more than four hundred million dollars in pre-funded balances simply to keep corridors running. This cost ultimately flows to end users through fees.

Stablecoins change the equation. Because they can move globally in near real time, they allow companies to:

• Reduce pre-funding from days of coverage to a few hours.
• Move liquidity around the clock, including weekends and holidays.
• Unlock capital that can go back into product, growth or customer acquisition.

Businesses do not have to overhaul their existing treasury workflows to gain these benefits. Stablecoins simply let them operate with far more flexibility and lower capital cost.

Open networks outpace closed loops

As the discussion evolves, Pelle and Kevin look closely at the difference between closed loop payment networks and open ones. Closed networks are controlled by a single company that determines participation and flow. They can work in limited contexts, but their total value is capped by the value of the operator controlling them.

Open networks grow far larger because value is created by everyone participating, not just the administrator. Kevin highlights several historical examples:

• The shift from isolated charge-card programs to the Visa consortium.
• The standardization of rail gauges that unlocked interstate commerce.
• The rise of Linux as the foundation of cloud computing and modern devices.

Stablecoins and public blockchains follow the same pattern. They create shared standards that many companies can build on, which expands use cases far beyond what any one entity could design.

Notabene takes the same approach. Its Transact product is built on TAP, an open messaging protocol that supports different transaction types and authorization flows without locking users into a closed database or proprietary environment. This keeps innovation open to the entire ecosystem while providing strong compliance controls.

Moving stablecoins from simple transfers to real business workflows

Most stablecoin payments today are push-only. Tokens sit in a wallet and move only when someone signs a transaction. This works for one-time transfers, but not for the full range of business payments the world runs on.

Traditional payments rely heavily on pull flows, such as:

• Subscriptions and recurring billing.
• Invoicing and accounts receivable versus accounts payable processes.
• Automated treasury and liquidity management.
• Merchant settlement and reconciliation.

Card networks became central to commerce not only because they moved money, but because they integrated directly into business systems and workflows.

This is the missing capability in stablecoin-based payments today. It is also where the partnership between Borderless.xyz and Notabene becomes important.

By combining:

• Borderless’s connectivity to stablecoin and fiat liquidity in more than seventy countries.
• Notabene’s open messaging and compliance layer built on TAP.

They are bringing stablecoin pull payments, treasury automation and workflow connectivity to businesses that want to move beyond one-off transfers. The result is a stablecoin infrastructure layer that mirrors how businesses already operate, while taking advantage of global, always-on settlement.

Money 1.0, Money 2.0 and the arrival of Money 3.0

Kevin introduces a simple framework for understanding how global money movement has evolved.

Money 1.0

Traditional networks like Swift and card schemes created the first generation of cross-border connectivity. These systems were built before the internet era. Settlement is slow, fragmented and expensive.

Money 2.0

Fintech companies improved the experience but did not change the underlying rails. To cover the limitations, they added layers of pre-funding, user-friendly interfaces and workflow tools. This produced many successful companies but did not solve the core infrastructure challenges.

Money 3.0

With blockchains and stablecoins, payments can finally be modernized at the foundation. Instead of adding more band-aids, value can move directly between counterparties that support the same stablecoin and blockchain network. This removes unnecessary intermediaries and supports real-time global settlement.

Pelle and Kevin argue that the next five to ten years will determine whether global payments continue relying on legacy patches or shift decisively to this new model.

What the next decade could look like

As stablecoin adoption accelerates across remittance providers, PSPs and global businesses, the need for an open, infrastructure-ready payments layer becomes clearer. The vision that Notabene and Borderless share is grounded in a few core ideas:

• Stablecoins can settle business payments directly.
• Local liquidity can be accessed without each company rebuilding the same integrations.
• Workflows and compliance can run on open messaging networks like TAP.
• Money can finally move at the speed of the internet rather than the speed of legacy rails.

For businesses exploring stablecoins, this episode offers a practical look at what it takes to move from experimentation to production. Money 3.0 is not a distant idea. It is already taking shape, and the companies building it are laying the groundwork today.

Episode breakdown

Here is a quick minute-by-minute guide to the conversation:

• 00:00 - 03:00
• Introductions. Pelle and Kevin talk about their history in stablecoins and why stablecoin adoption has felt like "it is coming next year" for nearly a decade.
• 03:00 - 08:00
• Global assets vs local fragmentation. Why regulatory licenses, banking rails and central bank currencies will always remain local, and what that means for anyone building on stablecoins.
• 08:00 - 15:00
• On and off ramps as the next generation of banks. Borderless’ view of orchestrators, market makers and local liquidity partners, and why building the same integrations again and again adds no real enterprise value.
• 15:00 - 22:00
• Where stablecoins deliver the most value today. Dollarization and the "store of value" use case in emerging markets versus the much bigger opportunity in global payments.
• 22:00 - 30:00
• Pre-funding and the illusion of real-time. How correspondent banking actually works, the risks of pre-funding in different markets and why stablecoins can release hundreds of millions in trapped capital.
• 30:00 - 36:00
• Open networks vs closed loops. Visa, railroads and Linux as case studies for why open systems outcompete walled gardens over time, and what that means for stablecoin ecosystems.
• 36:00 - 42:00
• TAP, open messaging and Flow / Flow Forward. How Notabene uses an open protocol rather than a closed database, and how that supports many use cases from payments to trade settlement on the same compliance rails.
• 42:00 - end
• Money 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. Kevin’s framework for the future of money, and how Borderless XYZ and Notabene think about success over a 5 to 10 year horizon.

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🎙️ Stack Chats is Notabene’s video series for product leaders, fintech builders, and infrastructure innovators shaping the next generation of blockchain-based payments.