Mercuryo – providing a BaaS that doesn’t depend on crypto prices
Mercuryo is a global payment services company that develops infrastructures for businesses looking to process cryptocurrency transactions. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in London, Mercuryo designs and implements software solutions that are currently employed by over 250 companies, including major names like Binance, OKEx, and Trust Wallet.
Greg Waisman is one of Mercuryo’s co-founders and COO of the business. Having worked within the fintech market for over 10 years, he utilises his diverse experience to scale Mercuryo to the next level of growth.
Back in 2017, Greg along with the two other co-founders of Mercuryo were operating in the traditional payments industry. At the time, the wave of interest in cryptocurrencies led them to discover that the market had no convenient methods for depositing or withdrawing cryptocurrency.
Mercuryo was born, at first in the form of a B2C wallet, but Greg and his colleagues quickly realised that there was a great number of businesses struggling to build cryptocurrency infrastructures in-house. And so, building B2B crypto solutions became the company’s main focus.
Today Mercuryo is an international company, catering to the needs of clients all over the world who seek to make it as easy as possible for their users to utilise cryptocurrencies.
Greg shares insight with Crypto AM into Mercuryo and its role within the market, the level of crypto adoption by businesses, and the future for cryptocurrency payments.
Product uniqueness and market demand
There are no more than a dozen products similar to ours in the world. We are making a unique service, one that requires a vast array of payment-related skills.
You can’t just show up and start from scratch: you need a solid payment and legal framework, as well as plenty of connections, which we’ve been building over the last 15 years.
We offer a plug-and-play solution for both crypto companies and businesses that are not native to this market. Mercuryo handles all regulatory and financial elements and educates our customers, end-to-end across the entire lifecycle. This means we not only suit businesses completely new to the industry, but can also support a wide range of enterprises, from large corporations to SMEs.
Our recent research highlighted that 20% of UK businesses (16% in the US) are not implementing crypto into their business primarily because they do not have the in-house expertise to do this. Our co-founders have deep-rooted expertise in the traditional payments landscape. Everything that they’ve learnt and built is extremely valuable for companies at the beginning of their journey. That is our key advantage.
Mercuryo can take away many of the issues that keep businesses from adopting crypto payments, and let companies operate exactly the way they are used to. Only now their customers can use crypto to conduct payments too.
Business owners can avoid having to worry about things like specific coin costs, conversion rates, where and how to store their cryptocurrencies, and so on. On the other hand, holders of crypto get the opportunity to actually use their coins to pay for goods and services. Seeing as the crypto community keeps growing, our technology is bound to make businesses more attractive.
Our research shows that 26% of businesses in the UK (24% in the US) are already choosing to use cryptocurrency because it’s faster operationally, and 26% of B2C businesses (13% for the US) choose to use crypto to give themselves an edge against competitors.
And it seems that this demand is only set to increase over the coming years too, with as our data revealed that of those UK businesses who are utilising cryptocurrency payment services, almost 62% (77% among the US businesses) expect the number of cryptocurrency payments they handle to increase a lot in the next five years.
On market regulation
Since 2017’s “crypto spring” we have been watching how local regulators react. They are constantly instituting relevant bans, and that’s normal — this is, in a way, setting the rules of the game. We support regulation, because that will make life easier for market players and businesses in the future. Regulation will encourage wider adoption and boost overall trust within the industry in the long term.
In order for a company to launch their own solution to work with crypto, it needs to figure out matters of regulation, KYC/AML compliance, and obtaining licences independently. That is a very complex thing to do, and it is why we were adamant on launching an end-to-end solution for this.
Mercuryo offers a ready-made toolkit that our clients can gain access to by integrating our widget. We already have a network of partners and licences that allow us to operate across the world, which means we can conduct operations without our partner companies needing to worry about tackling regulatory issues on their side.
Why Mercuryo doesn’t depend on crypto prices
What Mercuryo offers is a crypto-powered toolbox that empowers businesses to scale – globally. Businesses are supported by individually tailored payment solutions. As such, our goals and operational processes do not rely on the ongoing cryptocurrency rates.
Right now our focus is on providing a BaaS (Banking as a Service) solution, which is available for businesses through API integration. This solution allows traditional merchants to open bank accounts for their clients and provide them with on and off-ramp crypto functionality. On the other hand, for crypto firms and DeFi-related apps, BaaS allows enabling fiat accounts for users, dedicated to buying and selling crypto.
In the future, we may add other products or functions, depending on the popular needs and business models among our partners.
Growing the team and revamping processes
We have increased our employees three-fold in the last 12 months. Currently we have over 250 employees, with our head office and C-suite operating out of London.
Like any rapidly scaling company, we experienced some growing pains, and quickly realised we needed to increase our global footprint. Not only to improve our offering but also to explore and act on cultural and country-specific nuances. We operate a global matrix-style structure with both central and cross-functional teams across the globe.
Because we are evolving and expanding our product offering, partnerships and capabilities, employees have the opportunity to work across diverse projects leading to a high level of job satisfaction. We have our team to thank for our progress and the employees truly relish in our success. It is a brilliant culture to be a part of.
Mercuryo’s plans for the year
For the foreseeable future we are setting the goal of expanding the company to over 300 people and achieving over $1 billion valuation.
The team is constantly working on scaling Mercuryo products and expanding our partner network. In 2022 we will offer traditional payment services the option to integrate crypto processing using our API, which will allow users of traditional bank apps to have access to crypto products.
We are also working on improving local presence in different regions across the world. Our long-term plans include opening at least ten regional offices, with London remaining our headquarters. In 2022 we’ll flesh out Mercuryo offices in Africa, South America, and Asia.
Website: https://mercuryo.io/
Linkedln: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorywaisman/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/gwaisman