# Western Union's $1 trillion in payments makes stablecoins an obvious fit, Solana's Caddle says

Stabledash Live, a Stabledash show. Sep 28, 2026. Maya Caddle.
https://live.stabledash.com/shows/the-live-show/episodes/why-western-union-and-sofi-want-their-own-stablecoins-and-FPvIU_g81y8

Maya Caddle of the Solana Foundation says a company's own stablecoin can cut the cost of moving money across borders, but only issuers that have their own distribution should launch one.

Western Union alone handles about $1 trillion in total payments volume a year, according to Maya Caddle, head of payment partnerships at the Solana Foundation. On Stabledash Live, she used that figure to explain why remittance companies want stablecoins of their own and how that changes what it costs them to move money.

## Who Caddle works with

Caddle says she spends much of her time at the Solana Foundation with large traditional players, among them Moneygram, Western Union, the remittance company Zepz and SoFi. SoFi has announced SoFiUSD and plans to build it into its platform for both institutional and retail customers.

## Why remittances fit

Caddle says remittance companies may be the clearest fit for stablecoins because they have to move money across borders all the time. In her view, a company's own stablecoin lets it keep earning reserve revenue while money is in flight, wherever the coin sits in the world. Because transfers are instant, it also reduces how much cash the company has to prefund in other countries.

## The USDPT numbers

Western Union has launched its own stablecoin, USDPT, and shared some figures in a webinar with the Foundation, Caddle says. Counting prefunding, the company found its cost of capital was about 5% of the money it moved. With its own stablecoin and most of the reserve revenue, she says, that falls to 2% or slightly below, depending on Fed rates.

Caddle says lending against payment flows, offered by a sister company of Huma Finance, is a growing segment that can help cover the prefunding stablecoins do not remove.

## Not everyone needs a coin

Caddle says many companies benefit from launching a stablecoin, but not all of them need one. For SoFi and any other issuer, she says the first question is whether it has distribution in its own right. In what she called her personal hypothesis, she said a bank launching a stablecoin or tokenized deposit should aim to become one of the anchor currencies that new stablecoins are built on.

Caddle presents the Solana Foundation as a place for payments businesses to build. She says Solana is winning in institutional finance and payments, and notes that the CEO of Franklin Templeton called it the only real institutional chain or one of the key ones. The Foundation has also hired Rachel as its chief strategy officer.

## Key takeaways

1. Maya Caddle says Western Union handles about $1 trillion in total payments volume a year, and she calls remittance companies the most obvious fit for stablecoins.
2. Citing figures Western Union disclosed, Caddle says its USDPT stablecoin cuts its cost of capital from roughly 5% to 2% or slightly below.
3. Caddle says not everyone needs its own stablecoin, and the first question for any issuer, including SoFi, is whether it has distribution in its own right.

## Chapters

- 0:00 Solana's payments lead works with major remittance companies and SoFi
- 1:45 SoFi is rebuilding a SEN-style network and launching SoFiUSD
- 4:35 Issuing your own stablecoin depends first on distribution
- 10:14 Western Union cut capital costs with its USDPT stablecoin
- 15:06 Remittance users can move from one-off transfers to banking
- 17:44 Payment-flow credit like Huma and Arf reduces prefunding needs
- 20:34 Prefunding is a normalized but costly drag that stablecoins reduce
- 23:08 Solana Foundation is growing its team and institutional momentum

## Transcript

**Drew Rogers** (0:00)

The new core for the next era of finance. We have Maya here from Solana Foundation payments lead. And, Maya, you have a new teammate that I used to work with, Jamal. What an exciting day I saw that. I I pinged Jamal over iMessage the join link for this. So he... If he pops in, it's my fault because I'm interested to see what what he's thinking through today too. But it's great to see you. How's it going? It's going great. And, yeah, cool. More the merrier. Okay. So this is our our second time getting to know you.

But for those who didn't meet you on the first on the first appearance, maybe we start with a quick intro. Payments lead is such a fascinating focus. I feel like the world of payments is such a exciting one. What do you do at the foundation today? What does a typical day look like?

**Maya Caddle** (1:04)

Hi. Sorry. Can you hear me? I lost you for a period of time.

**Drew Rogers** (1:07)

Yeah. I think we we switched up a little bit. Are you good now? I'm good. Yeah. Yep. I was just just asking about your your quick intro for Famous League. What does that mean?

**Maya Caddle** (1:18)

So I'm head of payment partnerships at Solana Foundation. So I spend a lot of my time with the big traditional players. So think the MoneyGram, Western Union, Zaps, which is another big remissions company of this world, as well as other places. These would include SoFi, for example, I spend a lot of time with as well. And there's a bunch of others which I always say has seemed to be announced, but, genuinely, hopefully, will be announcing soon publicly.

**Drew Rogers** (1:45)

Yeah. SoFi, uniquely, I think, has been getting a lot of buzz. What are you guys publicly doing with SoFi specifically? I feel like SoFi has really emerged as this, like, super exciting, more like traditional fintech player, but has become... Even Accelerate Miami. Yeah. I think SoFi was doing... Like, they were going really loud and really proud there. What is... How did that relationship come to be? We've actually been pinging this... The SoFi team. We'd love to tell their story a little bit.

But maybe from your perspective, how did that all come to be?

**Maya Caddle** (2:22)

I got connected. I... There's someone... I can't remember who I was speaking to, but someone else I was speaking to about something else. And then they were like, oh, can I connect you to someone in the certified team? Sure. This is before they publicly announced anything to do with crypto. So I jumped on a call with them, and they started to talk about their road map. And, you know, if we zoom out and look at the history of SoFi, it's always been ahead of the curve. But to...

You know, there's a lot of players who, on the surface, will do something with stable coins or crypto, but what's really exciting about SoFi is how deep they're going. So in terms of what they're doing with us, there's a few things. So SoFi, of course, is its retail business, and it also announced earlier this year that it's launching its own institutional business. Right? So fundamentally, banking banks and other nonbanking financial institutions who want to be able to easily go between fiat and stablecoins.

And so what I've built it out is, you know, if we look back to the Silvergate's days, they had something called SEN, which was a network. And so the whole premise was that if you're crypto native company in particular, you would have... You'd easily be able to move on... Money on chain between different parties instantly, quickly at any point. But then there's also sometimes that fiat late that needs to happen alongside, and that wasn't possible.

And so Sun was basically saying, if you all bank with us on the fiat side, it's really just an internal ledger movement. Right? That will therefore complement your on chain money movement as well, depending upon what the use cases and needs are twenty four seven. And so they're starting to recreate that. And then, of course, this is... You know, that... SEN was built in a specific time frame where there wasn't regulatory clarity, where there weren't institutions of big payments companies who were coming on chain.

And so now what we're seeing with the likes of CERN, etcetera, is how do we start to think about beyond... Going beyond just the credit related companies. So they're doing that. The other thing that they, of course, have announced so far is SoFi USD or as they like to call it, SoFiD, and that's their stablecoin. And I think that's really interesting. They're going to embed that across their platform from both institutional to the retail side.

And then there's a couple more things as well in the pipeline, which we're really, really excited about as well.

**Drew Rogers** (4:35)

Yeah. Just on just on SoFi d here a little bit. I'd love your perspective on the payment side in terms of where you see SoFi USD fitting within the stack and how... I I I think we've gone through this really frothy kind of stablecoin press cycle a little bit where... And, like, maybe I'm obviously biased because we kind of cover and see all of it.

But the idea of issuing your own stablecoin and the utility of that stablecoin within a business context like SoFi, I'm curious for you, Maya, like how how that how have your opinions formed or changed recently around the role that stablecoins play within the context of SoFi in... For payments? Like, are you still just as bullish and kinda pushing the idea of, like, yep, SoFi USD issue issue your own coin. This makes sense. Has that evolved for you personally lately, or how are you thinking about that these days?

**Maya Caddle** (5:44)

I think for SoFi, it definitely makes sense, right, to launch our own stablecoin. I mean, if we're to zoom out again, not everyone needs to launch our own stablecoin, but for a lot of players, it is beneficial to do so. Right? So, of course, a part of this conversation, we'll talk a lot about remittance companies that we work with within the Solana ecosystem, and some of them have not shared Stablecoin on Solana too. For...

In the context of SoFi and in the context of actually anyone who's not sharing Stablecoin, the first question is, do you have distribution in your own right? Right? How can you get the different players within your own platform or network to use your Stablecoin, and why do they need it? And in particular, the key thing will be, also, you don't want it just to be... Well, it could be just a movement asset, but ideally, you want people to hold and have deeper utility.

The next question is on how do you start to think about it off platform and beyond within your network. And so I think SoFi is interesting and uniquely placed. They've got the first part because, of course, they have many customers around across The US as it is. And then on the second part, I just think this is where SEND could start to come into play because then there's a question of, okay.

Well, if I'm banking with SoFi, right, and they're helping with some of the fiat leg, I'm also going to use SoFi USD to be able to perhaps do the on chain link, at least with certain counterparties. And then you can start to see how utility can start to build out beyond just remaining on the SoFi platform. Then, of course, I have a questions that I... And that's true for anyone who issues a new stablecoin is what does that external push look like? My personal hypothesis and this is not just...

Doesn't apply to any given entity, but my personal hypothesis is especially if you are a bank, I would... If I'm to launch a stablecoin myself or tokenized deposit for that matter myself tomorrow, I would make sure I become one of the key anchor currencies for any new stablecoin that's coming. Whether that is USD denominated or not, Because one of the biggest challenges that we still face is the ease, speed, and affordability of going from an on chain to off chain.

And that still applies from a US dollar stablecoin back into use... US dollars. And so I think there's this opportunity where you could use that as a wedge to then make sure that different currencies start pegged towards your asset because now what's currently happening is that's happening with USDC. Right? And that's how you can start to push utility. So

**Drew Rogers** (8:12)

externally Is that is that what you... Would you describe... Like, we... We've gotten to know the Agora team pretty pretty deeply. Like, is that... That that reminds me in terms of how you've described it, how AUST or the Agora system works. Is that, like, how you would think about it where you have, like, kind of a household default stablecoin that serves as that, like, anchor across the stack for other maybe custom issued ones or flexible stablecoin programs on top. Is that what you mean?

**Maya Caddle** (8:41)

Yeah. Partially. I think the difference is that for... In accordance with Agora, lot of those would be managed and issued by Agora. I'm saying that these don't necessarily have to be managed or issued by this bank or entity. It's more in terms of how can you make or position your stablecoin and tokenized deposit to be attractive to these these players. Right? Say, okay. Well, here's why you should... Like, I should be the key partner or base asset or stablecoin for your stablecoin or whatever asset.

Because even if you look... Even if we're not just talking about tokenized deposits and stablecoins, if we look at tokenized RWAs, the deposit asset for almost all of them is, at times, just USDC. So how... With the proliferation of new stablecoins, how do we think about distribution of platform? How... Because, you know, all these issuers of tokenized RWAs will have every other stablecoin knocking on their door asking for them to be supported, the same with any given platform for that matter.

So I'm saying this is just a... Such a smart way to become an anchor stablecoin, especially if you are a fundamental believer in the role and importance of on chain FX. If you become an anchor stablecoin, so to speak, right now, you... Your future role, especially in on chain FX, and therefore tied to multiple currencies around the world and potential institutions, will continue to grow. But I think you need to be a certain type of entity to do that. You do probably need to be a federally chartered bank. Right?

And so, yeah, that... Those are my personal hypothesis. That's not necessarily what some of the partners or players and companies we're working with. It's that's... Unnecessarily do it.

**Drew Rogers** (10:12)

Got it. Okay. Okay. So why we brought you here? I wanna make sure that we... I I... Without Zach, I can get distracted. I don't know if you can tell. But let's talk about remittances. So you guys had a really exciting report that you got... You released a couple weeks ago about Sibylcoins and the role that they play. We talked a little bit about banking and how they're now really focusing and reshaping remittances. Bring us a little bit into this report high level.

We can kind of break down any of the, like, customer use cases. I know there's some really exciting ones mentioned here, Western Union, Anchorage, RAIN. Like, feel free to take this how you want to, but wanted to highlight this with our time today.

**Maya Caddle** (10:58)

Sure. So I think when we talk about use cases, let's start with the remittance companies, and then there's many other services that you mentioned, like, to help funnel some of those key use cases. Be great. So from a remittance company perspective, there's a few things. Right? We know remittance is huge. When you actually look at payment volumes, really, what I look at is is two key things that are drivers of international money movement. One is remittance, and the other one is import export volumes. Right?

And remittance companies, right, account for... Can't remember what the percentage of GDP... Global GDP is, but it's significant. Let's take Western New Year as an example. They alone do about 1,000,000,000,000 of TPV total payments volume annually. That's one company. Yes. It's, of course, a behemoth of a company, especially when it comes to remittances, but it's still significant.

And I think the thing with remittance companies, right, is they are perhaps the ones where stablecoins are such an obvious product market fit because they have to move money in... Internationally consistently. Their end customers are very price sensitive, so every bit does matter. And then to be dealing also with with exotic currencies, which can sometimes be volatile against US dollar and or other major currencies.

And so when we talk about different use cases that make sense for remittance players, one is obvious treasury use case. At the moment, to be able to give the sense and feeling of real time payouts in multiple jurisdictions, you have to prefund. And you have to prefund to take into account the fact that there's different banking hours, may not be twenty four seven.

Take into account the fact that over holidays, you know, maybe there's more of a demand and need for withdrawals, but, like, the banks may be closed, etcetera. And that is a huge capital... It's very capital intensive, and it's a massive drag on any remittance company's balance sheet. It's idle capital that's not being optimized. It's expensive because it is, of course, always a cost of capital. Now the benefit... And also when it's in flight, you're not earning from it.

The benefit of having your own stablecoin for remittance companies is that they could earn even when that's in flight. They can earn no matter where that stablecoin is in the world because they're still earning from the reserve revenue. They're still getting a pocket of NIM And and also reduces... Heavily reduces their need for prefunding because it's instant money move.

So you can tangibly move money from a wallet that's owned by an entity in The US to a wallet that's owned by entity wherever else in the world instantly. And that reduced the heavily operational overhead, but also it just means that your capital is not sitting idle. You can start to earn more from it. So one of the prime examples, especially when... Around this prefunded use case, is that Western Union's...

You know, we've done a webinar with them where they publicly disclose some of this information, which is that for them, they've launched our own server called USDPT. They found that roughly for pre... When you take into account prefunded, etcetera, the cost of capital is roughly 5% of whatever capital you're moving or is required.

Now when you take into account that they have their own stablecoin, they're getting portions of the reserve revenue, majority of it, And that reduces that cost center down to 2% or slightly below depending upon Fed rates. And that is a huge... When you multiply that by the amount of money they're moving, that's a huge, huge saving.

And there's even possible ways where you could then start to think about, okay, how can I shift this from a cost center to actually something that's profitable and that I'm making money from? And that really revolutionizes businesses. So that's on the behind the scenes. Right? And there's a lot that still needs to be done to make sure that you have that global distribution. How do you make sure that I have the right agent networks? Right? So that agents, maybe I'm prefunding them in state...

My stablecoin, but they can easily convert back to their local fiat as well. That's one point. The other thing that's really been amazing to see and is interested about remittances is, of course, the retail side. So remittance companies have relationships with people all over the world, individuals all over the world. But it tends to be very transitory. And what I mean by that is you send... You go to your outlet, you give money, right, and then it's sent to the recipient.

Recipient receives it, withdraws it, and that's it. And that repeats over and over again. In some countries and markets, I think especially women tend to be bigger remitters. They remit on average every two weeks. Men typically less so, less frequently. I think it's once a month. I know. That's interesting. It's less frequently. Yeah. It's really... It's when you look at, like Why do you think that is?

I think that is typically to do with maybe, like, family and societal pressures on women, right, of, like, a bare responsibility towards elders in a way that exists for men but slightly different. And so either way... We can have a whole debate, but either way, if you think about, like, the retail aspect, what's really key is how can we deepen that relationship with them. So many of these places and then across many countries, they want maybe exposure to additional banking services that they cannot have.

Well, they're receiving this asset, and now I can spin up long custodial wallets for them, and they can now receive hold. So that's step one. The next thing is like, well, okay. How can they earn rewards? And these rewards could be structured as a... Or... Yeah. How can you earn rewards? It could be structured as a cashback scheme. It could be structured as a savings wallet, etcetera. And that's where things then start to deepen.

And you start to see how for stablecoins and crypto represent a way to build out that banking stack across multiple jurisdictions quickly, easily, whilst making sure that you still have a high quality service and are given some... That actually very few retail people have actual true control of their funds. And, you know, you start with, as I said, say just receive it and hold it, then you start to think about reward schemes, then, of course, you also start to think about cards, then it just...

The next logical thing is credit as well. Mhmm. And so we're slowly building out that stack. And so as I said, it's twofold. I've been speaking for a little while now. One is on the retail side, and then the other one is on the operational prefunded treasury side.

**Drew Rogers** (17:44)

Yeah. We noticed just on this report specifically... I'll I'll pull this back up here, calling out Huma Finance. Looks like the tokenized lending facility there. It's... It seems like that's kind of the next step or or where you think things now go is deploying lending and credit. We haven't had Huma Finance on or any other... I'd love to double click into what's going on with with Huma. Any other, like, lending or credit related callouts here, or can we maybe just click into this?

Tell us a little bit about Huma and and where you see them fitting into this as as the conversation evolves a little bit.

**Maya Caddle** (18:23)

So I think Huma fits in a couple of ways. So one is through their sister organization, OFF. OFF really created a segment that is growing and is increasingly important. And, arguably, it's the only form of credit that is achieved true product market fit in crypto beyond DeFi native credit. And that is when it comes to payments flows. So, basically, what usually happens is when you're... Either you need to prefund or you need to rebalance even if you're using stable coins.

And so what off, etcetera, says is that rather than you having to worry about that, we will loan you money and we will collect the fiat leg ourselves, and we'll take a cut of that obviously as a fee. And even for companies that are coming on chain and our support of stablecoins, this is really important. Because when you look at international money flow, let's say you're not necessarily tied to remitters, but let's say you're PSP. And you're saying, okay. I can help set... Like, I can be...

You can settle me company in Stablecoins. So you won't need to prefund me, but the PSP will need to still potentially have someone who could do the last mile payouts. And so what's now happening is that PSP is now having to prefund that last mile payout provider, one. Two, also because the PSP is receiving money from the payments company, not in big batches, but, like, smaller amounts because it's instant, it's affordable, I don't need to send you 10,000,000. I can send you, like, a 100,000.

I can send you 1,000 and extra and whatnot. That becomes really expensive and difficult to manage. And so what... For for players such as ARF, they kind of step in and they basically can provide a float facility or provide capital to help offset some of that complexity and cost and also the reliance and need for as much prefunding as you otherwise would need. And that's why it's really important also. Like, Arthur continue to be an important player.

But when we talk about coming on chain, you have to think about the entire payment stack and network. It's not just not to target one aspect of it.

**Drew Rogers** (20:34)

It seems like prefunding is such a huge category and topic to understand across payments, but specifically with, like, remittance companies. It's like the pain there and the the operations there and how money is moving. What have you learned about prefunding specifically? Or, like, what would be, like, the one big realization or thing that makes prefunding such a crucial part of why things like stablecoins are bringing things on chain in this context? Like, why is... What is happening around prefunding so key?

**Maya Caddle** (21:10)

I mean, it's just incredibly expensive, and there's a cost of capital. Every dollar has an implicit cost, right, attached to it for a business. And imagine you you need to make sure that you have enough money to give a sense or feeling of real time payments in multiple jurisdictions around the world. So you just have to have capital set idle. You may not be getting the best interest rate in that bank account.

You're also definitely exposing yourself to FX risk in many of these currencies and countries, and it's a big operational burden. And that... And then, of course, it's a cost of capital point that I mentioned before. And so it is a big headache for a lot of companies. I think it's been heavily normalized because that's just how payments work.

But stablecoins help to reduce that burden, and that is a huge potential shift for many companies' business model, especially for those who have to move money internationally and have to give the illusion of feeling of real time pay... Payments. Because in reality, all that's happening is if I'm sending from here to Brazil, that money is now actually crossing internationally in real time. It's just that there's a prefunded position in Brazil. In Brazilian real, then they do the payout from that end.

But then my money from sitting in The US where I'm currently in, it still goes internationally and takes a little while before it actually lands in Brazil. And so that takes time. It's expensive. It's just not optimal way to run a business. And so I I think, you know, it's one of the... And... But prefunding exists in so many different ways. Right? You could argue that an Austria Foster accounts are from... They are from a prefunded. And so there's a question.

Some of some of the needs and requirements of proof of prefunded will exist to some extent, but there's always room for optimization, and that is the power for the opportunity that stablecoins really bring.

**Drew Rogers** (23:07)

Yeah. Okay. So stepping out here a little bit macro, What is it like to be at the foundation right now? I feel like the momentum is is building. We're bringing Jamal on. You you guys are adding, like, incredible talent to the foundation. You got Breakpoint coming out. I'm looking here last ninety days, like Solana... I'm pulling this up. Solana's had a really, really great few months. Like, how are you feeling right now over there?

**Maya Caddle** (23:37)

Excited. I mean, we... As you said, we've you've always had amazing talent within Solana Foundation. You have a lot of independence as always. Right? But it's highly intelligent people, highly driven people as well to work with. So we've always had talent, but then, you know, with the new additions of HMR or if it's Rachel, who's also equally amazing. He's joining us as our chief strategy officer. It's just amazing to have this new blood or fresh blood in the organization.

They bring new perspectives, new ideas, as well as just a wealth of knowledge and learning that only is beneficial. I think it only talks to the maturity of Solana Foundation. Right? I mean, you go back a few years ago and many people had written Solana off, but here we are. We are dominating and completely winning on the institutional front, on the payments front, as well as, of course, trade and defund. We've always had a quite a stronghold in. Yeah. And to be able to have so many institutions...

I mean, for goodness sake, the CEO of Franklin Templeton said that Solana is the only real institutional chain or one of the key institutional chains. To be able to say that... And it's not been that long since Genius Heart was passed, is a huge, huge, huge celebration for us and only talks to our strength and our continuing strength. And there's a lot more to come. And I hope to see as many of you at Breakpoint in in my home city. She's really excited to end up London.

And, yeah, it's going to be an amazing amazing event as always, and there'll be a lot of excitement That's to

**Drew Rogers** (25:18)

amazing. Well, Maya, thanks for the time. This is really fun. I'm gonna swap you out with Jamal, and we'll keep keep the Solana love going. This was really fun. Thanks for the time today.

**Maya Caddle** (25:30)

Bye.

**Drew Rogers** (25:31)

Alright. Cheer.