Tempo France suspends classical remittances, to focus on DeFi

By Gloria Methri

EU-based payment system operator Tempo France has decided to quit classical remittances and exclude them from its product line.

The FinTech company, which specialises in money transfers and holds a pan-European licence, said it wants to prioritise the development of new payment business solutions. The solutions’ technological base will be a combination of the latest classical payment developments and blockchain.

A broad spectrum of digital assets will be implemented. The company also reported that the solutions would cover all business aspects ranging from onboarding to KYC and AML.

Tempo successfully implemented the Stellar blockchain in its payment processing in 2017. Now, the firm aims to obtain a relevant EU licence to provide digital finance (DeFi) services. In this context, remittances might, in the future, become just one of several financial applications offered by Tempo, taking a non-primary space in the product line.

“We are proud to be the first company that once specialised in remittances only to embark on such a drastic transformational journey to become a high-tech payment service provider (PSP),” said Tempo CEO Alla Zhedik.

She added, “For the past few years, the payments market has seen dramatic changes. Active implementation of blockchain technologies demonstrates unconditional advantages such as the fastest transaction speed, the highest degree of security, and the lowest possible costs. Thus, the line between classical and digital finance has confidently been erased. The number of DeFi projects, including those bridging classical finance and DeFi, is growing exponentially, and so are stablecoins, Web3, and other initiatives.”

According to Tempo, the number of projects bridging digital and traditional finance will grow significantly in 2024, and the number of DeFi transactions will increase by 50 percent monthly.

Zhedik explained that Tempo has suspended remittances while on a path of substantial digital transformation of the company. “We aim to follow modern payment market trends while we tune our business model to a future where new technological approaches continue to emerge, and classical finance and DeFi instruments are parts of a whole,” she continued.

Tempo recently allied itself with solid payment market players, such as Armenotech and Advanced Payment Solutions. This has led to joint implementation of the Stellar blockchain in various countries in the EU, Africa, South America, and Asia.

Zhedik said the new strategy aims to implement a wide spectrum of products, ranging from effective blockchain integration in payment processing to cross-border payments and PSP services based on Stellar. This will enable the company to attract investors who are focused on high-performance DeFi markets, stablecoins, and further development of blockchain initiatives.