• Wirex says the stablecoins are designed to facilitate fast and cost-efficient international money transfers
• The collaboration will enable Wirex to add Stellar to its growing list of supported digital and traditional currencies.  
• Wirex says its stablecoins will be available to both its retail and institutional clients

Wirex, a Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulated payments firm that enables users to buy, store exchange and spend cryptocurrency has announced the launch of 26 fiat-pegged stablecoins on the Stellar network, according to a new Forbes report.

Wirex promoting broader crypto adoption

Per sources close to the matter, Wirex has joined forces with Stellar in a bid to foster widespread adoption of cryptos through stablecoins that are genuinely backed by fiat.

It’s worthy of note that with this latest initiative, Wirex has become the first payments firm to offer stablecoins standing at 1:1 with a vast array of local currencies including USD, EUR, GBP, HKD and SGD.

With the new Stellar-Wirex alliance, the former’s native altcoin, Lumens (XLM) will now be integrated into the Wirex payments platform which currently supports 19 digital assets and fiat currencies that can be easily converted and spent via the Wirex Visa Card.

Commenting on the partnership, Pavel Matveev, the co-founder of Wirex noted that the collaboration is a forward-thinking maneuver, as both firms are focused on promoting widespread adoption of cryptoassets. In his words:

“Joining forces with Stellar makes perfect sense for us. Both companies share a greater goal of encouraging the mass adoption of digital currencies and transforming the way people make payments. We are thrilled to add XLM to the Wirex platform, and even more excited to release our industry-first Wirex stablecoins.”

According to the team, the stablecoins will be available to both retail clients as well as institutional investors and they can be used to make payments online, pay for purchases at local shops, restaurants and more, through the Wirex Visa card.

Mateev firmly believes that the Wirex stablecoins will make it easier for businesses to pay their international suppliers, pay salaries to employees residing in various locations and manage foreign exchange exposure.

“Our plan is to expand Wirex and allow people around the world to take control of their digital and traditional currency. We are launching in North America (USA and Canada) and the APAC region in Q2 of 2019,” declared Mateev, adding “We already have 700,000 potential customers on the waiting list for a Wirex account. We want to bank the unbanked, democratize access to financial services and facilitate the integration of the burgeoning token economy.”

In related news, earlier in March 2019, Blockchain Reporter informed that IBM had adopted Stellar’s money wiring solution for the issuance of stablecoins.

At press time the price of XLM sits at $0.10, with a market cap of $2.04 billion.