In an exclusive interview, Ben Yu, head of OSL BizPay, shared his extensive experience in cross-border payments and the crypto industry, systematically explaining the strategic logic behind OSL Group's dual-track development of stablecoin and payment businesses within a compliant framework. OSL Group views stablecoin payments as a key infrastructure connecting Web2 and Web3, focusing on B2B cross-border trade, corporate fund transfers, and payment scenarios in emerging markets, aiming to reduce costs and increase efficiency by minimizing intermediaries. At the product level, OSL Group launched the stablecoin USDGO, initially deployed on Solana, while gradually serving traditional cross-border payment institutions and companies expanding overseas, leveraging its global network of compliant licenses. Ben also pointed out that the core opportunity for future stablecoin cross-border payments lies in efficiency improvement, while the biggest challenge is cross-jurisdictional regulatory coordination.

The guest's personal views do not represent Wu Shuo's views. The audio transcription was done by GPT and may contain errors.

Personal background and experience in the crypto industry

Cat Brother: Could you please tell us how you got into the crypto industry and how you joined OSL? What are your main responsibilities right now?

Ben: I'm actually a veteran in the cross-border payments industry, having worked in this field since 2014. By 2018, I began to systematically understand the crypto industry and also learned a lot about the stories of people working in it at that time. At that stage, the core applications and narratives of the crypto industry were highly focused on cross-border payments. As everyone knows, one of the original design goals of Bitcoin was to solve the problem of cross-border payments. So, from the perspective of someone working in cross-border payments, I started doing some research related to the crypto industry, including exploring its applications.

Later, in 2018, a good friend and I started an exchange, officially entering the crypto industry. Of course, there were some ups and downs along the way. While running the exchange, starting in 2019, due to some policy reasons, I returned to the traditional cross-border payment industry. Then, in 2025, at the beginning of this year, I had the opportunity to join OSL and take charge of the entire OSL BizPay business line.

This has led me back to a direction I've been focusing on and contemplating for many years: how to use cryptocurrencies, especially stablecoins, to optimize and improve cross-border payments, and even to build the next generation of cross-border payment infrastructure. This is essentially my personal experience. You could say I've returned to OSL with a seven-year-old dream of "cross-border payments + crypto."

OSL Group Brand and Strategy Upgrade: Establishing a Dual-Track Strategy of Stablecoin Trading and Payments Under Compliance Principles

Cat Brother: Actually, OSL has always placed compliance in a very high position, which is a point you have repeatedly emphasized. Now that you have proposed a parallel development direction for stablecoin trading and payment platforms, what is the biggest change for you in this brand or strategic upgrade? What internal judgments led to this decision?

Ben: First and foremost, it's important to clarify that this brand and strategic upgrade doesn't change our core principle of always prioritizing compliance. This remains unchanged in both our positioning and business philosophy. The real changes are more evident at the business level. We've further clarified our dual-track development platform and direction: "stablecoin trading + payments." Essentially, this represents a clearer understanding and external presentation of our corporate development strategy.

From an external perspective, the biggest change is quite obvious. As everyone knows, OSL is a compliant and licensed exchange, holding relevant licenses in multiple regions globally. The most noticeable change this time is our increased emphasis on our payment platform capabilities, including our vision, planning, and investment in this area. Internally, this isn't a sudden idea, but rather the result of a long period of planning. Because we always prioritize compliance, any new business direction begins with preparing for licensing, regulatory requirements, and establishing a compliance framework. Only after these fundamental conditions have matured did we formally bring "payments" as a major business direction, along with the group's overall vision, to the forefront.

From our perspective, this change is more like a process of accumulating strength before unleashing its full potential. As for why we made this judgment, at the management and company vision levels, we have long regarded payments, especially stablecoin payments, as a core business direction. We believe this is where OSL can truly bring substantial change to the cryptocurrency world, and it's also a very important and valuable entry point we've found to connect the fiat currency world and the stablecoin world.

The differentiated advantages of compliant exchanges offering payment services: From Day One compliance to B2B payment infrastructure

Cat Brother: I've noticed that recently it's not just OSL doing this; it seems like other offshore exchanges are also doing Pay. I've recently seen Gate and OKX doing Pay. As a compliant exchange also doing Pay, compared to them, what do you think is the biggest difference, or what are your advantages?

Ben: I think it mainly manifests in several aspects. First, from the perspective of Gate and OKX, they have been continuously promoting the compliance of their businesses in recent years, including applying for and obtaining more licenses. Many progress has already been made, both in internal compliance governance and in external license applications. However, objectively speaking, the issue of historical baggage may still exist. In contrast, from the company level, our biggest difference and advantage is that OSL has been a company built on compliance operation, compliance design, and compliance governance from day one. We do not have any historical compliance baggage, which is a very fundamental difference.

Another significant difference lies in their choice of business direction. From what I understand, Gate focuses more on specific payment scenarios such as acquiring and on-chain payments; while OKX, on the other hand, focuses more on on-chain payments around their own wallet system, building a more Web3-oriented payment ecosystem around the wallet.

Our positioning is somewhat different. From the perspective of OSL's overall payment strategy, we focus more on providing services to companies and enterprises, using payments as a bridge connecting Web2 and Web3. Specifically, in the BizPay line, our core focus is on B2B payment scenarios, including cross-border trade, global funds and treasury management, and fund transfers, providing the underlying payment infrastructure for these scenarios while connecting the entry points of Web2 and Web3.

Therefore, our goal is not to create entirely new payment scenarios, but rather to provide a new payment infrastructure based on stablecoins and blockchain for existing payment needs. In this way, we aim to bridge all payment needs in traditional Web2 scenarios and their potential extension to Web3.

BizPay's core position and progress within the group

Cat Brother: From a group perspective, what role does BizPay play in OSL's overall business system? How crucial is this business? And what is its overall progress, such as customer types, growth rate, and actual implementation status? Could you share some insights with us?

Ben: From a group-wide perspective, BizPay is one of the most important business directions for the entire OSL Group, and it could even be said to be the most core product and strategic direction. This is a highly consistent and repeatedly emphasized consensus within the group. Therefore, within OSL, BizPay is a very high priority, even the highest priority, business development direction.

This is precisely why, throughout the overall rollout of BizPay, the group's management, various resource lines, and back-office teams have all provided substantial support and attention. From a business progress perspective, frankly speaking, we are now close to completing the first phase, essentially finishing the seed user stage. Throughout this phase, we have consistently adhered to one principle: not to change existing payment scenarios and payment channels in the market, but rather to provide these scenarios with a better payment infrastructure.

To align with this strategic direction, our target clients in the first phase were primarily existing payment infrastructure providers, namely traditional Web2 cross-border payment companies. Through collaboration with them, we provided them with OSL compliance licensing capabilities and technical expertise, and completed system integration, thereby empowering these cross-border payment institutions to directly conduct Web3 or stablecoin payments, enabling them to quickly penetrate various cross-border payment scenarios.

The core objective of this phase is to achieve breakthroughs in customer types and user scale. Currently, we have already established partnerships with some of the leading cross-border payment companies in the Asia-Pacific region. In the future, people will likely become more aware of this, although they may not see the OSL name directly on the front end, as we are more of a provider of underlying capabilities. However, the market will gradually realize that OSL is serving an increasing number of traditional cross-border payment institutions.

From the perspective of customer type and business scenarios, at this stage we are focusing on emerging market countries and regions to build localization capabilities and cross-border payment channels (corridors). We already have many mature and operational channels, such as those from Africa to Europe and from Africa to Hong Kong. These channels are running stably with real transactions occurring every day, mainly serving companies with actual needs in emerging markets and regions with high payment difficulty.

In the next phase, we will further expand our services to more global companies and internet platforms, focusing on helping them solve pain points in cross-border payments, especially in regions with foreign exchange restrictions and emerging market countries, in terms of efficiency, cost, and compliance.

The core essential scenario for stablecoin payments: cross-border trade.

Cat Brother: From your practical experience, what are the most common and largest-scale use cases for users right now? Is it cross-border payments, businesses going global, e-commerce, or gaming? Which type of scenario has the most essential and strongest demand?

Ben: From the current situation, all the scenarios mentioned earlier have real-world usage needs and successful implementation cases. However, if we must distinguish the "strongest essential need," it's still cross-border trade. This is because the transaction structure of cross-border trade is relatively simple and direct, the trading partners are clearer, and in most cases, the decision-making power rests more with the buyer. For some export-oriented trade hubs, much of the demand is actually driven by overseas importers.

For example, some overseas buyers will directly request that stablecoins be used to pay for goods, or that settlements be made in the form of cryptocurrencies. When this demand originates from the buyer, it drives a rapid increase in the acceptance and usage of stablecoin payments throughout the entire cross-border trade chain. Therefore, overall, the largest and most mature demand is still concentrated in the cross-border trade scenario.

Of course, besides cross-border trade, e-commerce, overseas-bound companies, and the gaming industry have also explored and practiced in this direction. For example, we also serve some overseas platforms, where they use stablecoins to improve efficiency and reduce costs in fund transfers and flows between suppliers or between different regions and business entities within the same group. We are continuously promoting and implementing these needs, but at this stage, the largest proportion, the clearest chain, and the most rigid demand are still in the relatively simple and direct fund settlement scenario of cross-border trade.

How can stablecoins solve the problems of "expensive, slow, and opaque" cross-border payments?

Cat Brother: We all know that cross-border payments have many pain points, especially when different countries and banking systems are involved. They are often slow, expensive, and lack transparency. How do you plan to solve these problems? Do you have any specific case studies you could share on how you help clients overcome these pain points?

Ben: First, let's return to the core pain points of cross-border payments for businesses. Whether it's being "expensive," "slow," or having complex and opaque processes, it all boils down to one reason: too many intermediaries. Almost all the problems stem from this. More intermediaries naturally increase costs, which is easy to understand; and these costs aren't just the fees each intermediary institution earns, but also include substantial compliance and risk control costs. Each intermediary bank and handling institution needs to invest in its own anti-money laundering and compliance requirements. When there are more intermediaries, the process naturally slows down, and this is the core of all the problems in cross-border payments.

Therefore, from our perspective, whether considering stablecoins or the logic behind stablecoin payments, the most crucial point is to minimize intermediaries. Here's a concrete example: In some of our current business models, we've helped a company transfer funds from Africa to Europe.

In this process, we have local partners in Africa who can directly provide clients with local payment collection and on-ramp capabilities. This means we can directly collect local currencies in Africa, such as Naira, convert them into stablecoins, and transfer them to the OSL BizPay system via the on-chain network. Within the BizPay system, based on the client's final settlement country and region, such as Europe, the corresponding stablecoins are converted into USD, and the USD settlement is completed with the client. Ultimately, what is presented to the client is a "fiat-to-fiat" link, without a complex intermediary bank system, but rather through a stablecoin network that facilitates rapid fund transfer and clearing.

The benefits to customers are very clear. First, with numerous intermediaries eliminated, overall costs are significantly reduced. Second, we are currently conducting on-chain fund transfers on the Solana network, which offers significant advantages in both speed and cost. For customers, they don't need to understand whether the process involves a stablecoin network or a blockchain; their direct experience is twofold: first, the entire process is fully compliant and secure; second, with local Naira receipts and USD settlement, the payment experience is significantly improved.

Previously, cross-border payments might take T+1 or T+2 days to arrive. Now, in many cases, same-day settlement is possible. Our fastest case to date has been completed within approximately 3 hours, and this timeframe includes all financial approval processes. For businesses, the value of this change is very clear—a significant increase in cash flow. Treasury funds can be rolled over more quickly, reducing the amount tied up in working capital. This is a very direct and quantifiable improvement.

Reasons for choosing Solana to issue USDGO

Cat Brother: You just mentioned that you launched your stablecoin, USDGO, on Solana, right? It's a new product. Why did you choose Solana as your public chain? After all, there are many public chains to choose from now. What were your core considerations? Was it speed, low cost, or other factors? Also, looking ahead, for example after 2025, will you consider expanding USDGO into more use cases? What metrics will you focus on then?

Ben: Yes, our stablecoin is called USDGO, a relatively simple name. First, let me explain why we chose Solana. Firstly, OSL and the Solana Foundation have maintained a comprehensive strategic partnership for a long time. Whether in payments or transaction-related areas, we have continuous and in-depth cooperation with Solana on multiple levels, and we have established a solid foundation of mutual trust, which is a very important prerequisite.

Secondly, from the perspective of the chain's performance and design, Solana is very suitable for payment-related transaction processing, especially cross-border payments, which have high requirements for throughput and timeliness. Solana itself has a relatively high TPS and a relatively low and stable transaction fee level. These characteristics are very advantageous in payment scenarios and perfectly match our needs for stablecoin payment infrastructure.

Thirdly, there's the institutional adoption aspect. The Solana chain is already widely used by institutional users, demonstrating a certain level of recognition and maturity within the institutional community. Therefore, considering both technical performance and market and institutional acceptance, choosing Solana as the initial main chain for USDGO is a relatively reasonable and prudent choice.

In summary, the trust built up through our long-term partnership with Solana, Solana's technological adaptability in payment and transaction scenarios, and its maturity at the institutional adoption level all contributed to our decision to launch USDGO on Solana.

Of course, looking to the future, we will continue to evaluate from multiple dimensions, including market penetration, whether different public chains are suitable for high-frequency payment transactions, and their compatibility in more stablecoin distribution and usage scenarios. As our business develops, we do not rule out supporting more main chains in the future, allowing USDGO to be implemented and circulated in a wider range of ecosystems and scenarios.

The strategic significance and corporate value of USDGO

Cat Brother: You only recently launched USDGO. I saw in your announcement that it's not simply "another stablecoin on the market." From your perspective, what is the most crucial strategic significance of USDGO? And from the perspective of enterprise users' experience, what are the differences or advantages of USDGO compared to other stablecoins?

Ben: The core can be understood from several levels. First, from the perspective of OSL's overall stablecoin payment strategy, it consists of two parts: one is the payment network, and the other is the stablecoin itself. For the BizPay payment line, what we are doing now is providing more convenient and accessible on-ramp capabilities globally, based on different clients' business scenarios. This means providing an entry point for on-chain transactions and access to the stablecoin system, ultimately building a payment network or payment channel. And for this network, we hope that the true "blood" carrying liquidity is our own stablecoin.

In reality, various stablecoins already exist in payment scenarios, and numerous use cases revolve around them. We also believe that more new and diversified stablecoins will circulate simultaneously in payment networks in the future. However, this will also bring a more complex user experience and a higher cognitive threshold for enterprise users, and may even raise issues regarding monetary sovereignty and usage choices. For example, in cross-border channels like those from the US to Brazil, deciding whether to use a US dollar stablecoin or a local currency-related stablecoin increases decision-making complexity and can cause confusion for customers.

This is why we believe it is essential to offer our own stablecoin within our payment network. On one hand, this enhances our control over specific payment scenarios, allowing us to better design products and services; on the other hand, it provides customers with a simpler and more consistent stablecoin experience, without excessive reliance on other service providers or third-party stablecoin issuers. Overall, stablecoins are an indispensable part of our strategy.

As you just mentioned, the launch of USDGO has been quite rapid. After completing the initial accumulation of seed users and core scenarios with BizPay, the stablecoin product was quickly launched simultaneously. Going forward, we will continue to work together more on the collaboration between the payment network and the stablecoin to create a smoother and more efficient stablecoin payment experience for enterprise customers.

The process and compliance challenges for enterprises integrating with BizPay

Cat Brother: If a company wants to integrate with BizPay, what steps are typically involved from the initial communication to successfully completing the first payment? Are there any particularly difficult aspects during this process, such as compliance, technical integration, or funding?

Ben: This question can be viewed in two scenarios. Because we have already developed relatively mature and standardized solutions for our target industries, the integration process is usually quite smooth for clients with more general business models. After understanding our solutions, these clients often give direct feedback saying, "This is exactly what we need," indicating a high overall match.

For these types of clients, the onboarding process is relatively simple, often a quick and easy agreement. Because I had over a decade of experience in the payments industry when I first chose this business direction and designed the solution, I had a good grasp of these clients' pain points and real needs, so the solution often directly addresses their core concerns. In practice, it's simply a standard institutional cooperation process: both parties submit materials, conduct mutual due diligence, complete compliance reviews, and then proceed to the formal onboarding process.

The next step is to connect to our API and complete the system integration from a technical perspective. This part itself doesn't have many obstacles. The real complexity often arises in the already complex business scenarios of cross-border payments, especially for large overseas companies or internet platforms. Based on their own business models, they often involve multiple fund transfer links and various settlement methods. At the same time, they also need to consider compliance, taxation, and issues across multiple jurisdictions. These factors combined amplify the overall difficulty exponentially.

In this context, we typically need to offer clients more customized solutions beyond standard products and account plans. This includes streamlining and integrating payment pathways, with the goal of achieving the lowest possible cost and fastest possible payment efficiency while maintaining compliance. Because our corporate clients have very high compliance requirements, the most challenging part of the process often lies in designing a solution that simultaneously complies with the regulatory requirements of multiple jurisdictions and the overall anti-money laundering compliance logic. This stage may encounter some bottlenecks and requires considerable communication and repeated verification.

However, once the initial solution design and overall setup are completed, subsequent compliance due diligence, formal network access, and technical integration will become relatively smooth, and there will be no major obstacles.

Two weeks to complete onboarding and the first cross-border payment: the efficiency and cost advantages brought by a compliant network

Cat Brother: Generally speaking, from the moment you first make contact to the final completion of a cross-border payment, how long does it typically take?

Ben: About two weeks. For our relatively mature solution, the overall progress is actually quite fast. Because we don't need to do too much extra, complex customization work, with a mature solution, we can basically complete the process from integration to the first payment in about two weeks.

Cat Brother: I understand. The timeframe was actually quite surprising; I didn't expect the whole thing to be resolved in just two weeks. You've obtained many compliance licenses globally. For your corporate clients, what is the biggest value of such a compliance network? Is it that compliance makes the process simpler and the coverage wider? Conversely, if competitors don't have such a comprehensive compliance network, wouldn't it be much more difficult and time-consuming for them to do similar things? Is my understanding correct?

Ben: Yes, we can look at it from several perspectives. First, what is the value of the license to us, and to our clients? Of course, service providers or clients who don't care about compliance and licenses are not within the scope of our discussion. Because in our judgment, such participants will eventually be eliminated by the market and regulation. Globally, whether in developed countries or emerging markets, relevant legislation and regulatory frameworks will be implemented one after another in the next year or two, and at the latest, most countries will enter a stage of clear regulation by next year. This means that the entire industry must operate in compliance under regulation, and non-compliant models will find it difficult to exist in the long term.

Given this premise, let's return to another more fundamental question: what is the significance of global compliance and a global licensing network? This actually comes back to our vision and long-term strategy. We believe that global compliance and broader licensing capabilities are essentially putting into practice a core logic—eliminating unnecessary intermediaries as much as possible.

Once we have compliance and operational capabilities in multiple jurisdictions, we can conduct business independently, controlling the flow of funds and service delivery within the OSL system, without needing to introduce more intermediaries or rely on other licensed partners to accomplish the same task. In my view, compliance not only brings value to clients in terms of "compliance and security," but more importantly, it ultimately helps clients optimize their cost structure—a very practical and crucial advantage.

Long-term trend assessment of stablecoin cross-border payments

Cat Brother: You just mentioned that globally, stablecoins and related payment businesses will gradually enter the regulatory implementation stage. For example, in the first half of 2025, the US also passed some related legislation. There was a lot of discussion about payments and stablecoins in the industry during the first half of 2025, but it cooled down somewhat in the second half. Having worked in the cross-border payments and stablecoin fields for many years, from your perspective, what will the global payment development trend be in the next one to two years? Also, what are the main opportunities and challenges currently facing this industry? If you could only choose one, what would be the biggest challenge?

Ben: First, if we start with the topic of stablecoins themselves, or broaden our perspective to look at the overall direction of "blockchain cross-border payments," I personally believe that the general direction will not change. Whether from the perspective of actual market demand and implementation cases, or from the perspective of regulatory and compliance progress, the consensus in the entire industry on this direction is very clear, and everyone will continue to build and advance along this path. Our actual business practices in the market, the cases that have already emerged in the industry, and the actions of governments in various countries at the levels of legislation, regulatory frameworks, and licensing all constantly confirm this point. From the long-term trend of industry development, this direction is not only certain, but on many levels, it is already happening and continuously moving forward.

If we return to the question of "what is the biggest challenge," the core difficulties faced by stablecoin cross-border payments are actually very similar to those in the traditional fiat currency world. The very nature of cross-border payments dictates that they will inevitably involve multiple jurisdictions, and how to achieve mutual recognition and effective connectivity between different jurisdictions is a crucial issue for compliant cross-border payments.

For a simple example, when a transaction occurs between the United States and Australia, each country has its own independent legal system and regulatory requirements. In such a situation, how can the transaction proceed smoothly while simultaneously meeting the regulatory and compliance requirements of both sides? How can regulators better collaborate to ensure that businesses truly benefit from the efficiency and cost advantages of stablecoin cross-border payments, rather than introducing additional compliance costs and burdens?

Therefore, in my view, the biggest challenge facing compliant cross-border stablecoin payments in the future lies in how to cross the boundaries between different jurisdictions, promote mutual recognition and coordination between different regulatory frameworks, and form a more effective cooperation mechanism at the regulatory level, so as to truly help the development of cross-border stablecoin payments on a global scale.

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