Open USD is the next Zelle

Shai Goldman
July 07, 2026

Happy Tuesday Brex Community,

Last week there was exciting news regarding the launch of Open USD, a new stablecoin that was launched with some of the biggest names in tech, fintech and banking, including Stripe, Discover (owned by Capital One), Visa, Mastercard, Google, Coinbase, of course Brex and over 100+ other players! Zach Abrams is leading the charge of Open USD, he most recently sold his startup Bridge to Stripe for $1B+ and was the Chief Product Office of Brex prior to that.

Why is this interesting news?

There are similarities between Zelle and Open USD. Zelle launched 10 years with a consortium of banks, to make payments easier and faster between consumers / businesses. A lot of people were skeptical of whether a group of banks could launch a new technology but mission accomplished, some of their incredible stats:

160+ million: The number of bank and credit union accounts that offer Zelle
7.7 million: The number of small businesses enrolled to use Zelle
2,300+: The number of banks and credit unions that provide Zelle
In 2025, Zelle helped millions of consumers and small businesses send $1.2 trillion, with small businesses sending ~650 million transactions (totaling over $350 billion)

The opportunity for Open USD is to take Zelle, but make it more global, make is faster, more open and more commercial oriented. Zelle has set a very high bar but Open USD has the capabilities to overtake it in terms of number of transactions, total dollars transacted and number of businesses actively using the platform. It’s all about execution at this points, lets see what they pull off.

Open USD is also interesting in that legacy banks are part of announcement. Stablecoins will disrupt banks in terms of how they generate fees, specifically wires fees, ACH fees and fx fees. Many banks are aware of the pricing pressure of stablecoins , rather than bury their heads in the sands, some are leaning into stablecoins or other digital solutions, as they alternative could mean being disrupted completely.

On the Open USD front, you know which banks are not in the announcement? JPM, BofA, Wells, Citi and several others. Those banks have announced a separate initiative that is effectively an alternative to Open USD, they are targeting a launch in 2027.

It’s an exciting time in fintech and looking forward to where the puck is going.

Have a great week!

Shai Goldman

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