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Reap wants to kill the FX fee. The Hong Kong-based fintech and Visa Principal Issuer Member is moving to add a Mexican peso stablecoin to its product lineup — cards, cross-border payments, the whole stack — per founder Daren Guo.
It’s a pointed move. Right now, stablecoin transactions are almost entirely dollar-denominated. Reap puts the figure at roughly 99% — even in markets where businesses actually operate in local currencies day-to-day. That gap is the opportunity Guo is chasing. Cross-border FX fees in emerging markets can run anywhere from 5% to 7%, and Reap’s pitch is basically: local-currency stablecoins cut that down. Settlement happens on-chain, around the clock, no waiting for a bank in a different time zone to open.
The peso isn’t the only currency on Reap’s radar.
Hong Kong Dollar, Euro, Won, Yen — All in the Mix
Beyond the Mexican peso, Reap is looking at stablecoins pegged to the Hong Kong dollar, euro, South Korean won, and Japanese yen. No timeline has been announced. No prospective issuers have been named either. The company hasn’t disclosed much on the rollout mechanics at all, which is a little murky for a product that sounds pretty close to ready.
What’s clearer is why Mexico makes sense as a starting point. Reap holds licensing in both Hong Kong and Mexico, so a peso token isn’t some speculative leap — it’s a logical extension of existing regulatory groundwork. The company can issue cards in over 100 markets, and the peso stablecoin would slot into that infrastructure rather than require building something from scratch.
Reap’s ownership structure adds another layer here. Payward — the parent company of Kraken — owns Reap, and that relationship probably opens doors. Access to yield-generating products, tokenized equities, and crypto-native infrastructure are all possibilities, though specifics haven’t been spelled out publicly.
33% Volume Growth and a Visa Partnership Doing Real Work
The growth numbers back up the ambition. In the first half of 2026, Reap’s card and payments volume rose 33% compared to the same period a year earlier. That follows what the company described as a significant expansion in 2025. Revenue and volume reportedly tripled that year, though Reap hasn’t published granular breakdowns.
The Visa relationship is central to all of this. Reap operates as a Visa Principal Issuer Member, which means it can manage the regulated card-issuing business directly — handling compliance, customer checks, fraud controls — while Visa runs the network-level stablecoin operations underneath. It’s a clean division of labor, at least in theory.
Visa’s Asia-Pacific president, Stephen Karpin, put it plainly: blockchain and traditional banking systems can work alongside each other rather than fight for the same ground. That framing matters. A lot of stablecoin narratives lean on disruption, on replacing banks. Karpin’s line is more collaborative, and it’s probably the message that gets Visa’s institutional partners comfortable.
The Asia-Pacific angle is worth sitting with for a second. Regulatory environments across the region vary wildly — Hong Kong has moved aggressively toward crypto licensing, while other markets remain cautious. Reap’s positioning as a compliant, Visa-backed issuer gives it a lane that pure crypto-native players can’t easily occupy. It’s not trying to be a DeFi protocol. It’s trying to be a regulated financial company that happens to settle on-chain.
The Bigger Bet on Non-Dollar Stablecoins
The non-USD stablecoin market is still small. Dollar-pegged tokens — USDT, USDC, and their cousins — dominate global stablecoin volume by a massive margin. But demand for local-currency alternatives has been building, particularly across Asia and Latin America, where businesses want to manage FX exposure without converting everything through dollars first. Every conversion is a fee. Every fee is friction. Reap’s argument is that local-currency stablecoins remove a step.
That’s the theory. Execution is harder. Liquidity for non-dollar stablecoins is thinner, market-making is more complex, and regulatory approval for each new currency peg adds time and cost. Reap hasn’t said how it plans to handle those pieces. Unclear whether it’ll issue the stablecoins itself or partner with third-party issuers — the company explicitly said it hasn’t named prospective issuers yet.
And the compliance integration piece is real work. Treasury tools, fraud controls, customer verification — Reap says all of that gets built into the product suite alongside the stablecoin settlement layer. That’s not a small lift. But it’s also probably what separates a Visa-backed fintech from a crypto startup that moves fast and breaks things.
For businesses doing cross-border payments outside standard banking hours — which is basically every business operating across time zones — a 24/7 settlement layer in local currency is genuinely useful. Not just marginally better. Meaningfully better. The question is how fast Reap can get these currencies live and liquid enough to matter.
Reap’s card and payments volume hit that 33% growth mark in the first half of 2026.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What currencies is Reap exploring for new stablecoins?
Reap is looking at stablecoins pegged to the Mexican peso, Hong Kong dollar, euro, South Korean won, and Japanese yen, per founder Daren Guo.
How much did Reap’s payments volume grow in 2026?
Reap’s card and payments volume rose 33% in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period the prior year, building on significant growth in 2025.
Who owns Reap and what does that mean for its product roadmap?
Reap is owned by Payward, the parent company of Kraken, which could open access to yield-generating products and tokenized equities, though no specific plans have been announced.
Why It Matters
Reap's initiative to introduce a Mexican peso stablecoin highlights a significant shift towards local currency solutions in the stablecoin market, which has predominantly favored the U.S. dollar. By targeting the nearly ubiquitous foreign exchange fees prevalent in cross-border transactions, Reap aims to enhance financial inclusivity and efficiency for businesses operating in local markets. This move could potentially disrupt traditional FX service models, making it a critical development for both fintech innovation and the broader adoption of stablecoins in diverse economies.
