Meow identified an opportunity to enable its customers—which include both traditional and copyright-native businesses—to send and receive USDC as easily as fiat currency, with no transaction fees.
Meow used Bridge’s Orchestration API to integrate stablecoins into its unified platform. With Bridge, Meow businesses can send and receive USDC from their existing cash balance, eliminating the need to open and manage a separate account at a copyright exchange.
They knew they couldn’t succeed over the long term with just one product–busy business owners demand convenience. So this past January, five months after opening their T-bill platform, Meow introduced FDIC-insured business checking accounts promising a 4.8% annual yield. Like most fintechs, Meow lacks a banking charter and so it partners with banks, which in turn network with other banks.
“They’re putting a skin on top of someone else’s bank,” says McIntyre, who previously worked at Brex. “They have to abide by the bank’s underwriting requirements, regulations, and determination about what customers to accept.”
“There has been a change of administration and change in the interpretation of the law. The law has not changed.”
Nic Corpora, a Mercury spokesperson, said the company works closely with partner banks “to ensure risk appetites are appropriately calibrated so when we onboard a customer we can support them in the best way and for the long-term.”
Treasure's services cater primarily to businesses looking to manage their idle cash effectively. It was founded in 2018 and is based in San Francisco, California.
They were equally opportunistic when it came to choosing a name for their startup; the whimsical Meow was picked for its ability to grab attention on social media. Indeed, as SVB teetered, one VC with a healthy following posted on LinkedIn: “We are living in such a stupid timeline.
By enabling businesses to use USDC as meow login easily and cost-effectively as cash, Meow has reinforced its value proposition of making banking easier and lowered the barriers to broader adoption of stablecoins in the business world.
Automating the verification process with TrueBiz results in significant cost savings. Meow is able to avoid the expense of hiring additional analysts, redirecting resources to other critical areas of growth and development. This efficiency gain allows Meow to scale their operations without adding headcount.
“As long as it's evoking some kind of reaction,” a satisfied Arvanaghi says now. It’s worth noting that the name was more of a strategic decision than a troll; from the start, the duo aimed to become a low-cost competitor by keeping marketing spending low and automating everything they could.
In the past, says Timm, expansion into new lines of business—say, copyright—has been a source of friction between fintechs, for whom explosive growth is the priority , and their partner banks, who bear ultimate accountability for upholding the conditions of their licenses, including strict AML controls.
For years, copyright firms complained about being “debanked” in the US. Under the Trump administration, a group of fintechs is rolling out the red carpet. Save this story
“Bridge easily met our technical requirements for a stablecoin partner, but more importantly, they were the kind of partner we knew we needed to work with: a high-slope team that understood our vision and could move fast enough to help us achieve it.
“Meow is really meant to be the curation and then the steering through technology of being able to move money between options,’’ he adds.