What Zepz stablecoin card launch tells us about Bridge’s growing influence and competition

Zepz to start issuing VISA cards on top of its stablecoin-powered wallet, Sendwave Wallet, in partnership with Bridge.

This makes stablecoins held in Sendwave Wallet more usable and interoperable with the broader commerce ecosystem. Through integration with the VISA network, Zepz seeks to bridge the “last mile” gap in cross-border payments. This enables users in emerging markets to spend digital dollars directly at millions of merchants globally, eliminating the need to convert funds into local currencies before making purchases. Zepz will earn interchange from card spend, unlocking a new revenue source for them.

“This isn’t just about moving money, but giving people better access, more stability, and financial choice,” said Mark Lenhard, CEO of Zepz. “For years, cross-border communities have been underserved by a financial system that wasn’t built for them. We’re changing that.“

Stripe’s Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure platform, powers Zepz’s stablecoin-linked card.

“Global fintechs like Zepz shouldn’t have to spend years launching cards from scratch in every single country,” said Zach Abrams, CEO and co-founder of Bridge. “With Bridge, Zepz can launch card services quickly and expand to new countries with just a few lines of code.”

The card will start rolling out in early 2026 to select markets, including Brazil.

For Zepz, the economics of the move are clear. Traditional remittance models are linear: a sender in the U.S. or U.K. pushes funds to a recipient in Nigeria or the Philippines, who immediately withdraws the cash. The transaction ends there. By introducing a wallet and a linked card, Zepz aims to capture the recipient as a long-term banking client, monetising interchange fees and keeping liquidity within its ecosystem.

The partnership also deepens ties between Zepz and Stripe, with a separate agreement signed to facilitate Zepz’s expansion into the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

Bridge’s growing importance in the stablecoin infrastructure ecosystem

Bridge is popular for its virtual currency accounts and international payment capabilities.

The company issues these currency accounts in partnership with local financial institutions like banks, but holds those deposits in stablecoins. So, users have local account details that can interact with the real world; get paid in fiat, but that value is held within a Bridge partner’s app as stables, which can then be held, converted or transferred.

However, this card partnership with Zepz is one of the ways that they are announcing their expansion into card issuing. Stripe, popular for its card processing (acquiring) abilities, also has issuing prowess. Thus, it was only a matter of time before Bridge came to issue cards, but stablecoin-enabled.

Issuing cards is hard. While stablecoins allow for one integration deployment to multiple markets at once, regulation and risk controls mandate that cards are used (acquired) where they are issued. So, giving the illusion of a one-click deploy global card requires a lot of workarounds, which include special exemptions from card schemes, like VISA.

“We spent months working with the VISA team to understand the options and how we could launch a single program to enable developers to launch cards to their global user base,” says Ben O’Neill, Head of Money Movement at Bridge. “We put in the leg work up front to ensure that our programs are compliant with upstream partners and scalable locally so that you know that your infrastructure will grow with you.”

Two things differentiate the way Bridge’s card-issuing platform works. One, it can work on customer balances held anywhere, not only those held with them. For instance, with your bank-issued debit card, the bank can only check, authorise and debit balances from your account with them. But Bridge leverages smart contracts to be able to pull balances from wallets held with any provider on a blockchain. “For example, if you power your Solana wallets via Privy, Bridge can leverage a smart contract to pull user balances,” Bridge says on its website, announcing its card functionality.

The second point builds on the first; consumer-facing financial institutions that opt to launch their own stablecoins can connect Bridge’s card to their stablecoins, not necessarily USDC. This stablecoin issuance can also happen on Bridge’s platform, giving issuers the chance to earn from the reserves backing their stablecoins.

For Bridge cardholders (end customers), the stablecoin-linked cards offer lower cross-border fees, in cases of currency differences between the local currency and the card’s currency, without sacrificing the global acceptance that VISA has built in 150 countries.

Bridge’s ecosystem of frenemies, Rain and Brale

Bridge is not the first or only player to issue cards or have an open stablecoin issuance platform. But with everything fintech, players first unbundle financial services before looking to quickly rebundle and become the de facto source for everything in that line.

In 2021, Raincards launched a stablecoin-powered card issuing platform as one of the pioneers. It has grown into an industry leader, accounting for about 13% of all card-linked transactions. In November, it processed $250 million in card volume, far surpassing RedotPay’s $91 million. “Today, the company has more than 100 partners signed, processes millions of payments across 150+ countries, and has achieved 10x year-to-date volume growth,” writes Rain’s Series B lead investor.

Following the rising tide of crypto, Rain raised twice this year: a $24.5 million Series A, before GENIUS, and a $58 million Series B, after the GENIUS Act was passed. It has since expanded its focus to building a full-stack financial platform for stablecoins, including wallet issuing, on-chain rewards management with Uptop acquisition, and on/off ramping to fiat with Fern acquisition.

On open issuance, Brale, launched in 2022, enables entities to launch their own stablecoin. In September 2025, it announced its $30 million Series A.

These VC-backed startups would have, at some point, facilitated integrations with each other to enable solution delivery for a client like Zepz. But now, as each entity grows and looks to expand its pie, they will become frenemies; competitors who can work together.

Competition heats up in the consumer fintech space for stablecoins

Competition also continues to heat up in the consumer fintech space.

Legacy players, like MoneyGram, have launched direct-to-consumer stablecoin-powered platforms. In fact, MoneyGram has integrated its formerly standalone stablecoin app, MoneyGram Wallet, like Sendwave Wallet, into its main app that’s already available in Colombia. “MoneyGram is discontinuing the MoneyGram Wallet, a standalone non-custodial wallet launched in 2024. This is a separate app that we will permanently sunset for all users on December 26, 2025” MoneyGram told Condia. “This is happening because we are consolidating our experience into one global MoneyGram app, rather than maintaining a separate wallet product. As part of this unified experience, we are bringing stablecoins into our core remittance flows.”

Western Union announced plans to launch its own stablecoin, USDPT (Dollar Payment Token), on the Solana blockchain. It also has a Digital Asset Network to facilitate on/off ramp for third parties, which Rain is now integrated into.

The GENIUS Act emboldened institutional players to experiment more comfortably, without fear of rebuke from US bank examiners citing reputational concerns for dealing with crypto. So, we expect a flurry of more announcements from established players.

When Stripe paid over $1 billion for Bridge, we reckon it was betting on the startups ability to lead the innovation landscape in stablecoins and capture most of the market activity. Bridge seems to be doing just that, so far.