Behind ex-Ovo CEO’s new blockchain venture

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Hi there,

I was an exchange student in South Korea before multicurrency forex cards were mainstream. To get ready for the trip, I applied for a Citibank spending account, which my peers said was the most convenient for cash withdrawals. (The focus wasn’t really on foreign exchange rates back then, but rather on the ease of making transfers.)

Alas, my application took longer than expected, and by the time my debit card arrived via snail mail, I’d taken off to Seoul.

Instead, I brought a wad of cold hard cash, praying that I wouldn’t get mugged before I could find a local bank branch to deposit my money. (I didn’t.) All was fine until a few months later when I needed some cash in an emergency.

Wiring the money from Singapore was excruciating – it required funds to be sent via telegraphic transfer and done in person at a bank branch. This cost me a few days and a significant (and opaque) processing fee at an uncompetitive exchange rate. But there were few other options back then.

Today, multicurrency card operators like Wise, Revolut, and YouTrip have reshaped the forex landscape for students and travellers.

But on a larger, commercial scale, multicurrency central bank digital currencies and multicurrency digital currency corridors have the potential to be the real game changers.

In this week’s big story, Mike looks at Partior, which is headed by former Ovo CEO Jason Thompson and is a joint venture by financial industry heavyweights DBS and J.P. Morgan, as well as Singapore’s state-owned investment firm, Temasek.

The blockchain-based wholesale payments aims to disrupt current cross-border money flows, which now involve multiple intermediaries. Based on digitized commercial bank money, settlements on Partior are faster, cheaper, and more transparent.

In this week’s hot take, we also dive into the concept of “money streaming” – the idea of a paying out money (e.g., salaries) in a continuous flow, down to the hour or minute – which crypto communities such as Mean DAO are developing with its most recent fundraise.

— Melissa

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THE BIG STORY

Behind the crypto project backed by Temasek, JP Morgan, DBS

Helmed by Ovo’s former CEO, Partior has the potential to upend global payment processing by making it faster, cheaper, and more transparent.

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THE HOT TAKE

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NEWS YOU SHOULD KNOW

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