Wirex
“Can a consumer crypto card company reinvent itself as the stablecoin-rails infrastructure layer for other fintechs and banks?”
Founded2014
HQLondon, United Kingdom
FoundersPavel Matveev, Dmitry Lazarichev
IndustryFintech / Crypto
The story
Wirex began in 2014 as a consumer crypto-debit-card pioneer, claiming the title of first company to ship a crypto-enabled card. By 2022 it had added lending (Wirex Credit) and pushed into HNW (Wirex Private). The most consequential pivot has been the 2024–2025 shift toward becoming infrastructure: Wirex Pay Chain (an in-house payments blockchain on BVI) and Wirex BaaS (a stablecoin-account, card-issuing, and cross-border-payments API) reposition the company from a consumer neobank to a stablecoin-rail provider for other fintechs.
Last 12 months
Product timeline
2014
Wirex founded in London by Pavel Matveev and Dmitry Lazarichev as one of the first crypto-enabled card providers.· banking
2022
Launched Wirex Credit — crypto-backed loans up to $100,000 in stablecoins at up to 80% LTV.· lending
2024
Launched Wirex Pay Chain (BVI entity) — a dedicated payments-focused blockchain.· pivot
2025
Wirex Private launched $10M crypto-backed loans for HNW clients.· lending
2025
Launched Wirex BaaS — stablecoin API for accounts, cards, and yield targeting fintechs and banks.· pivot
Regulated entities
3
regulatory licences held by Wirex
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
9 layers disclosed in Wirex’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Wirex BaaS (self-operated)Wirex Pay Chain (self-operated)
Money movement
in the full report
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Card issuing
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
KYC
in the full report
Sponsor bank
in the full report
FX & payouts
in the full report
Crypto
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
14 more providers across 8 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.