Dennis Owusu-Sem

COO @twifintech | Fintech enthusiast decoding stablecoins & payments innovation |@Forbes Top 25 Black British Leaders To Follow

[Dennis Owusu-Sem @dsem221]

18 months ago, I joined @twifintech as its first full time employee.

Today, TWIF has been acquired by @Plaid.

[Dennis Owusu-Sem @dsem221]

@twifintech @kmgrose @coinbase @sxswlndn Had a great time on this panel!

[This Week in Fintech @twifintech]

“This is about what is the role of the pound sterling in the future digital economy.” @kmgrose, UK CEO @coinbase.

Is the UK about to lose its advantage in the global stablecoin race?

That was the question posed by @dsem221, @sxswlndn, in conversation with @kmgrose, Emma Mayer (@BVNKFinance) and @StaniKulechov (@aave), on the convergence of traditional finance, stablecoins, and digital financial infrastructure.

For Keith, the debate goes beyond stablecoins. As the UK finalises its regulatory framework, the decisions made today could shape the future of payments, digital finance, and financial infrastructure for years to come.

[This Week in Fintech @twifintech]

“Stablecoins are going to become a thing, and we need to get a strategy around it.”

Coincidence? We think not!

That was @kmgrose, UK CEO of @coinbase, on stage at @sxsw London alongside TWIF COO @dsem221 discussing the growing role of stablecoins in payments.

And today, Coinbase announced a partnership with @Checkout that will bring stablecoin acceptance to eligible merchants across its network of more than 1,000 enterprise customers.

For an industry that has spent the past year talking about stablecoin adoption, this is what it looks like in practice.

Another step towards stablecoins becoming part of mainstream payments and financial infrastructure.

[This Week in Fintech @twifintech]

A great morning in LA alongside @SiliconVlyBank, and @AlphaEdisonLA.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for brunch and a few hours of conversation with fintech founders, operators, investors, and builders from across the ecosystem.

[Dennis Owusu-Sem @dsem221]

13/ If you enjoyed this, follow @dsem221 for more stories at the intersection of fintech, stablecoins, AI, and billion dollar companies.

Follow @twifintech for the latest in fintech news.

And follow @thestablecon, the world’s leading stablecoin conference.

Question for you:

Who should I write about next?

[Dennis Owusu-Sem @dsem221]

75% of Gen Z stablecoin users want to be paid in stablecoins.

Not for trading.

Not for speculation.

For getting paid.

One founder saw where this was heading early, and has already processed $1.5B+ in payroll building the rails for it.

Meet Hugo Finkelstein (@hugfink ), Founder & CEO of Rise (@rise_pay ) 🧵

[Dennis Owusu-Sem @dsem221]

12/ Hugo’s answer:

Payroll.

And if 75% of Gen Z stablecoin users want them in their paycheck, he may be building one of the most important rails in the future of work.

The companies that figure this out early may have a recruiting advantage most people aren’t paying attention to.

[Nik @NikMilanovic]

Is @airwallex coming for @tryramp and @brexHQ?

Airwallex just announced the launch of Airwallex Billing, a suite of tools to handle the ways businesses charge their customers.

The three core products:

▶️Invoicing — Send branded digital invoices supporting over 160 global payment methods, with settlement in 20+ currencies and automated reconciliation. airwallex
▶️Subscription Management — Launch and manage recurring billing with flexible pricing and automated renewals, no code required. airwallex
▶️Usage-Based Billing — Real-time usage metering for businesses (like AI, SaaS, and API companies) that want to offer pay-as-you-go or hybrid pricing models without building the infrastructure themselves. airwallex

Key selling points:

Goes beyond just generating invoices by automating recurring payments, recovering failed transactions, handling tax calculations, and offering account-to-account payment.

Built-in multi-entity support lets businesses oversee billing, product catalogs, and customers across all subsidiaries.

Global tax automation handles different tax rates across jurisdictions.

What's next:

▶️AI-powered collections
▶️A self-serve customer portal for managing subscriptions
▶️Credits for usage-based pricing
▶️Expanded tax filing support.

[Mary Ann Azevedo @bayareawriter]

Financial infrastructure provider @Plaid introduced two in-house foundational artificial intelligence models on Thursday that aim to dramatically improve how the company classifies transaction data, capping off a week of back-to-back security and payment launches ahead of its annual Plaid Effects conference.

The rollout follows the May 20 launch of Guaranteed Payments, a service where Plaid assumes full financial liability for slow-moving bank transfers to eliminate multi-day settlement delays. By using real-time data from its network – which monitors over 500 million accounts – Plaid approves Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers instantly, allowing digital applications to credit user accounts immediately. If an approved payment later fails, Plaid steps in to cover the financial loss.

"If you're using this guaranteed ACH product, and we've said we stand behind this transfer, then we take the liability on for those funds arriving," Will Robinson, Plaid's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) told @twifintech in an interview.

The launches build on a pipeline of product updates that the fintech company has deployed over the last month to modernize bank-level infrastructure.

More details in the article link in the comments below

[This Week in Fintech @twifintech]

Big week for @Plaid.

The fintech infrastructure giant rolled out a wave of new AI and payments products spanning fraud detection, ACH infrastructure, transaction intelligence, and AI integrations.

That includes guaranteed ACH payments backed by Plaid itself, new AI models analyzing transactions and behavioral patterns, a fraud detection system the company says catches 41% more fraud, and integrations with @OpenAI and @perplexity_ai as AI-native fintech adoption accelerates.

One stat that stands out: Plaid says 20% of its new customers over the past year have been AI companies.

The bigger shift? Financial infrastructure companies are starting to rebuild the payment stack for an AI-first world.

Catch the full break down by @bayareawriter, on This Week in Fintech.