Zetta and OpenPayd partnered to build infrastructure for faster global payments and efficient multi-currency operations.
Cross-border payments involve moving funds between businesses in different countries and often require currency conversion and coordination across multiple financial systems.
A company in Europe paying an overseas supplier, for example, may start with euros that must be converted into another currency and routed through several intermediaries before reaching the recipient.
As more companies expand internationally, the demand for faster and more efficient global payments keeps growing, and many fintech platforms are now investing in dedicated infrastructure to meet that demand.
This is where specialised providers play a role. OpenPayd and Zetta partnered to develop technology designed to support faster cross-border payments and more efficient global money transfers.
About OpenPayd
OpenPayd is a fintech company operating in the banking-as-a-service (BaaS) sector. Its platform provides financial infrastructure through a single API, allowing businesses to integrate payments, accounts, and foreign exchange services into their own products.
One of its key capabilities is multi-currency accounts, enabling businesses to manage funds across multiple currencies within a single system.
With OpenPayd’s infrastructure, companies can:
- Hold funds in more than 35 currencies
- Send and receive international payments
- Convert currencies using integrated FX services
- Manage financial operations through a developer-friendly API
This approach allows fintech companies, marketplaces, and digital platforms to offer financial services without building their own banking infrastructure.
The challenge: why cross-border payments are still slow
Despite advances in fintech, many cross-border payments still rely on traditional financial rails, passing through multiple intermediaries before reaching their destination. For companies managing international payments at scale, these delays can disrupt supplier relationships, affect cash flow, and reduce operational efficiency.
OpenPayd's specific requirement was to operate with crypto: accepting and issuing stablecoins to clients in a fully automated way, without requiring manual technical intervention. At the same time, they needed to maintain control over the process, and critically, achieve fast settlement times. The challenge was meeting all three of those demands within a single, reliable infrastructure.
Why Zetta
The partnership was built on an existing foundation of trust. Our teams had worked together before, giving OpenPayd confidence that Zetta had both the technical skills and the collaborative approach needed for a project of this complexity.
Georgi Vasilev, Senior Software Developer at Zetta, explains:
"What makes this partnership work isn't just the technical side but the way our teams collaborate. That kind of working relationship isn't something you find everywhere. Many companies focus heavily on technical delivery, while we offer both."
Designing infrastructure for faster cross-border payments
Zetta worked with OpenPayd to design infrastructure capable of supporting efficient global financial operations, built around the following core technologies:
- Java with the Quarkus framework for high-performance services
- Apache Kafka for asynchronous communication between system components
- Fireblocks, which provides wallet infrastructure and blockchain transaction execution across multiple blockchains, enabling new currencies to be integrated quickly
- Circle complements this by providing payment infrastructure between multiple fiat and crypto providers, acting as the connective layer across the ecosystem
Using Kafka's event-driven architecture means services exchange information without waiting for synchronous responses, allowing the platform to process large volumes of global payments efficiently.
Integrating multiple financial systems
One of the most complex aspects of the project was coordinating several financial systems within a single automated workflow.
The platform connects OpenPayd’s fiat infrastructure with external digital asset systems, including Circle and Fireblocks. Each environment operates independently, requiring careful orchestration to ensure transactions move smoothly between them.
“The main challenge was getting those systems to work together in a simple and automated way,” says Georgi.
A typical transaction illustrates this complexity: a client deposits euros into a personal virtual IBAN issued by OpenPayd, exchanges them for a supported stablecoin, and initiates a payout to a destination wallet, all from a single environment. Supported stablecoins include USDT on Ethereum, Solana, or Tron; USDC on Ethereum or Solana; and RLUSD on Ripple.
The result
In collaboration with Zetta, a platform was created where businesses can convert and send funds internationally, including via stablecoins, without manual intervention or exposure to the complex infrastructure behind the scenes. Settlement speed is achieved through net settlements for smaller amounts, background liquidity movements, and webhook-based notifications. Automation eliminates manual processes entirely: operations teams manage everything from a single platform, a whitelisting mechanism verifies destination wallet addresses, and the system orchestrates each step automatically upon completion of the previous one. The result is faster, more controlled cross-border payments at scale.
What’s next
Demand for cross-border payments infrastructure continues to grow as businesses expand internationally. OpenPayd and Zetta are exploring further improvements to pricing optimisation and platform capabilities, continuing a partnership where technical depth and collaborative working culture go hand in hand.