Yellow Card

Yellow Card is a licensed stablecoin payments infrastructure provider founded in 2016 by Chris Maurice (CEO) and Justin Poiroux (CTO). The company builds the rails connecting stablecoins to local fiat payment systems across emerging markets, with its deepest coverage in Africa and expanding operations in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, it employs 200+ people across 20 countries.

What It Does

Yellow Card acts as the bridge between global stablecoin liquidity and local monetary systems in markets where traditional correspondent banking is slow, expensive, or inaccessible. The platform enables businesses, financial institutions, and individual users to move money internationally using stablecoins as the settlement layer—bypassing multi-day wire transfers and the fee chains of correspondent banks.

The core insight behind the business came early: in 2018, the founders watched a man send $200 from the US to Nigeria and lose $90 in bank fees. Yellow Card's answer is to replace that chain with stablecoin settlement, settling cross-border payments in minutes rather than days, at a fraction of the cost.

How the Platform Works

Yellow Card operates across two main layers:

Enterprise API infrastructure. Businesses integrate Yellow Card's API suite to access stablecoin payments, fiat on/off-ramp capabilities, and treasury management tools. The API covers 60+ countries and 50+ local currencies including the Nigerian naira, Ghanaian cedi, Kenyan shilling, South African rand, Brazilian real, and many others. Clients use it for cross-border remittances, B2B settlement, embedded fintech features, and managing exposure to hard currencies. Yellow Card also offers USD and EUR bank account setup for business customers and international card issuance.

Consumer-facing app and exchange. Individual users across supported markets can buy and sell stablecoins using local payment methods—bank transfers, mobile money (M-Pesa, MTN Mobile Money, Airtel Money, and others), and cash agents. The consumer product originated as the company's initial distribution channel and remains active across Africa.

The company positions itself as multi-modal on the settlement layer: its infrastructure connects to multiple blockchains so that stablecoin flows can route through whichever network best serves the transaction. Transfers on Solana are offered at no additional cost to users alongside other supported networks.

Tokens and Assets

Yellow Card supports three primary stablecoins:

• USDT (Tether) — the dominant stablecoin across African consumer markets and a primary instrument for B2B settlement.
• USDC (USD Coin) — Circle's regulated stablecoin, supported on multiple blockchains. Yellow Card also introduced USDC on the Stellar network for cross-border payments.
• PYUSD (PayPal USD) — PayPal's stablecoin, supported alongside the primary two.

The platform does not issue its own token. Its revenue comes from payment processing fees on remittances, API usage, and treasury services rather than from native token economics.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

Yellow Card supports Solana as one of its settlement networks, with Solana transactions offered free of charge to users—meaning the cost of moving stablecoins on Solana is absorbed into Yellow Card's broader fee structure rather than passed through individually. USDC and USDT on Solana are among the network's most widely held stablecoins, and Yellow Card's fiat on/off-ramp coverage gives African and Latin American users a licensed, regulated pathway to acquire or liquidate Solana-based stablecoins using local payment methods. For Solana's stablecoin ecosystem, Yellow Card represents a critical last-mile infrastructure layer into markets that lack direct on-ramp alternatives.

Compliance and Licensing

Yellow Card holds country-specific financial service licenses across its operating markets. In South Africa, it operates under a Third Party Payment Provider (TPPP) license with Standard Bank as the sponsor, a structure that places it inside the formal banking supervision perimeter. Compliance infrastructure covers:

• AML monitoring and transaction screening
• Sanctions and anti-terrorism screening
• Travel Rule compliance (required for regulatory reporting on crypto transfers above thresholds)
• KYC and KYB verification workflows
• Transaction authorization policy management

The breadth of licensing across 35+ simultaneous markets is one of the company's stated competitive advantages—achieving a production-ready regulatory status in each country requires years of regulatory engagement, banking relationships, and local legal work that is difficult to replicate quickly.

Partnerships

Visa uses Yellow Card's infrastructure to streamline treasury operations and liquidity management across the markets where Yellow Card holds licenses.

Mastercard announced a strategic partnership in May 2026 to accelerate stablecoin-enabled payment innovation across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EEMEA), with plans to extend globally. The collaboration covers four verticals: cross-border remittances, B2B settlement, digital loyalty ecosystems, and treasury management.

Standard Bank serves as the sponsor institution for Yellow Card's South African regulatory license.

Team and Funding

Founders Chris Maurice (CEO) and Justin Poiroux (CTO) built Yellow Card from the ground up as an Africa-first, compliance-first fintech, expanding to over 200 employees across 20 countries by 2026.

The company has raised over $120 million in total equity financing across multiple rounds. Investors include Blockchain Capital, Polychain Capital, Valar Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, SC Ventures (Standard Chartered's innovation arm), and Sony Innovation Fund. A $40 million strategic round closed in August 2026, with SC Ventures and Sony Innovation Fund among the new institutional backers—signaling traditional finance's growing interest in stablecoin infrastructure. The company processes over $10 billion in cumulative volume with 106+ Tier 1 banking and liquidity partners.

Notable recognition includes the Grand Prix Award in Payments at Money20/20 USA 2025, the AFIS Disruptor of the Year Award in 2023, and the Worldcomag Best Contribution in Economic Mobility in Payments Kenya in 2024.