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Rebuilding Global Banking With Stablecoins and AI | Deep Dives with Jeeves CEO
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Key Moments
Jeeves is rebuilding global banking with stablecoins and AI, enabling them to serve mid-market and enterprise clients in 25 countries with 10x revenue growth and 8x volume growth on 140 employees.
Key Insights
In Argentina, 60% of the population uses stablecoins, indicating it's a 'lived experience' rather than a theory for many users.
Jeeves' revenue has grown 10x and volume has grown 8x with a reduction in headcount from 200 to 140 over two years, largely attributed to AI adoption.
The company's core intellectual property is its in-house 'CMS' layer, connecting to 50-60 partners and maintaining its own ledger in 25 countries.
Operating as a full principal member with Mastercard, Jeeves issues cards directly (e.g., 'Issued by Jeeves Brazil'), bypassing traditional banks in the process.
Jeeves' margin has expanded from 40% two years ago to over 80% due to owning infrastructure and having regulatory coverage.
By leveraging stablecoin infrastructure, card issuance costs have collapsed, enabling profitable expansion into smaller markets like Peru where previously it was uneconomical.
Jeeves' mission: a global, stablecoin-native financial operating system
Jeeves aims to be a global business bank for enterprises, functioning seamlessly across multiple countries. Dileep Thazhmon, CEO of Jeeves, explains that their model is built on a stablecoin-native approach, which is not just theoretical but a 'lived experience' in regions like Argentina, where 60% of the population uses stablecoins. This adoption is a key driver for Jeeves' impressive growth, with revenue increasing 10x and payment volume growing 8x, all while operating with a leaner team of 140 employees compared to 200 two years prior. The company's strategy focuses on serving mid-market and enterprise clients, offering a suite of products including corporate cards and both local and international payment solutions. A significant portion, over 50-60%, of their international payments now settles directly on stablecoins.
Building defensible infrastructure in challenging markets
Jeeves faces significant challenges in Latin America due to the lack of 'as-a-service' financial infrastructure common in the US. Their core intellectual property lies not in the front-facing products but in an internal 'CMS' (central management system) layer that connects to dozens of different vendors and partners. A critical component of this infrastructure is their ability to maintain their own ledger in 25 countries, handling currency and foreign exchange complexities. This allows them to issue statements across these regions in under 24 hours, a capability that took 18 months to develop. Furthermore, Jeeves operates as a full principal member with card networks like Mastercard, meaning cards are issued directly by Jeeves (e.g., 'Issued by Jeeves Brazil'), eliminating intermediaries and requiring a high level of operational sophistication. This deep integration with the infrastructure stack is considered highly defensible.
Strategic focus on enterprise clients and regulatory compliance
Unlike many fintechs that start with smaller businesses, Jeeves strategically targeted mid-market and enterprise companies from the outset. This approach, while initially challenging, allowed them to gain credibility and build the robust infrastructure necessary for larger clients. Regulatory compliance is a cornerstone of their strategy, viewed as a core 'defensible moat'. Jeeves is actively pursuing licenses across its operating countries, including filing to become a full deposit-taking bank in Brazil. Owning these licenses is crucial for providing a complete customer flow and establishing Jeeves as a true global business bank. This regulatory groundwork, combined with their own infrastructure, has enabled significant margin expansion, growing from 40% two years ago to over 80% currently, as they retain a larger share of the value chain and pay out less to partners.
Stablecoins as a catalyst for growth and innovation
Stablecoins, particularly USD-denominated ones like USDC, are fundamental to Jeeves' growth strategy, especially in Latin America where currency volatility makes them highly attractive. Unlike in the US, stablecoin adoption in LatAm is widespread, with countries like Argentina seeing 60% of the population using them. Jeeves doesn't always pitch 'stablecoins' directly to enterprise clients; instead, they market it as 'Jeeves Instant Pay.' This approach focuses on the benefits—speed and reliability—rather than the underlying technology, building trust with CFOs concerned about money movement. The integration of stablecoins has significantly improved their international payment capabilities, reducing settlement times drastically. This infrastructure is also enabling new product launches, such as a stablecoin card in Argentina that offers instant currency volatility protection and a zero-FX fee experience for card swipes, making it viable for businesses with large employee bases.
AI as a force multiplier for efficiency and scale
Artificial Intelligence is a critical enabler for Jeeves, allowing them to scale operations with fewer resources. AI has been particularly impactful in functions like document ingestion and underwriting. For instance, their underwriting team, which manages $2-3 billion in TPV, comprises only four people, a task that would have required 15 people two and a half years ago. This is due to more sophisticated, self-learning AI models that can process vast amounts of data. AI also powers their customer service chatbot, 'Lenora,' which handles a significant volume of inquiries across multiple languages, though cultural nuances require specialized training. Jeeves has also developed proprietary AI solutions for tasks like OCR, accounting for regional differences in data formatting (e.g., comma and dot usage in Brazil). The company views AI not as an optional add-on but as a fundamental necessity for survival, enabling them to compete with AI-native companies moving at a much faster pace.
Localization and product evolution
While operating globally, Jeeves emphasizes deep localization. A key product, the corporate card, is offered with local issuing capabilities and licenses in each country, providing a seamless user experience across regions like Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia that looks identical regardless of location. Product offerings adapt locally; in Brazil, a strong focus on fraud prevention has led to features like single-use or automatically turning-off cards, while payment products (Jeeves Pay) are more prominent in Mexico and Colombia. When launching new countries, like Argentina, stablecoin technology has dramatically reduced the time and cost involved, collapsing expenses to the point where launching in smaller markets like Peru is now economically feasible with just a few sales staff. This model serves as a blueprint for future international expansion.
The future: on-chain operations and programmable money
Jeeves anticipates a significant shift towards on-chain operations. They are exploring the possibility of maintaining a single pool of stablecoins (USDC/USDT) and minting locally as needed, which would drastically reduce capital costs compared to holding reserves in multiple local currencies. The company is also investigating collateralizing on-chain receivables to get supplementary USDC funding. Beyond infrastructure, Jeeves is focusing on programmable money. They are developing AI agents, such as a reconciliation agent that matches purchases and a GL coding agent that assigns accounting codes to transactions with 99% accuracy. This capability is particularly valuable given Jeeves' own sophisticated financial operations across multiple countries and bank accounts, providing a strong internal validation before offering these services to clients. The convergence of stablecoins, AI agents, and programmable money is seen as the future of financial infrastructure.
Founder evolution and talent acquisition
Dileep Thazhmon emphasizes that founder success requires constant evolution of their 'superpower' every six to eight months. Initially, the focus was on a single metric: driving card spend in Latin America, even with limited local knowledge. As the company grew, the focus shifted to finance during a period of rising interest rates, and now, with a strong CFO and finance team, the CEO dedicates significant time to AI development. He stresses the importance of founders being '70% good' at most functions, being willing to step into needed roles, and then hiring experts. For talent, Jeeves prioritizes local hires for market-specific roles like country General Managers, coupled with seasoned leaders from companies like Brex and Capital One for critical functions. The company culture values 'relentlessness,' attracting individuals who can thrive in a fast-paced, challenging environment with a steep learning curve, which is quickly apparent to new hires.
Mentioned in This Episode
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Jeeves: Building a Global Business Bank
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Common Questions
Jeeves is a stablecoin-native financial operating system for global enterprises. It aims to build a global business bank that can function across multiple countries, solving issues related to expense management, international payments, and currency volatility, especially in regions like Latin America.
Topics
Mentioned in this video
A partner that assists with fraud detection components for Jeeves' card services.
An AI tool that the CEO built a version of for Jeeves to demonstrate capability and encourage adoption.
A company that uses Jeeves for its corporate card needs, benefiting from the seamless, localized experience.
A payment network partner with whom Jeeves is a principal member, allowing direct card issuance.
A company that benefits from Jeeves' seamless corporate card experience across different countries.
A company from which Jeeves hired its Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).
A global business bank and financial operating system that leverages stablecoins and AI for expense management and payments.
A payment network mentioned in the context of issuing card BINs.
A financial institution in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia used as a reference for how Jeeves operates and localizes its products.
A company from which Jeeves hired its risk officer.
An AI company mentioned for its rapid release of new products, necessitating continuous learning.
An accelerator program that formerly supported Jeeves, with whom they had a supportive relationship despite the need to focus on larger clients.
A stablecoin used by Jeeves for international payments and currency volatility protection, settling instantly and facilitating card issuance.
Mentioned as a platform from which agents will be doing purchasing.
Mentioned as a platform from which agents will be doing purchasing.
A company mentioned as the inspiration for Jeeves' goal to build a global business bank.
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