Rain’s CEO Is Betting the Stablecoin Story May Be One Consumers Never Notice

Watch more: Digital Shift: Rain, Farooq Malik

The story of digital assets has typically been told loudly. Bitcoin arrived with libertarian bravado, promising to replace banks and undermine governments. Ethereum pitched itself as a world computer.

At every turn, crypto has been most comfortable when it could be seen.

Yet the most transformative chapter in digital payments may prove to be the quietest one: stablecoins.

Stablecoins are often framed as a new front-end payment method, but Farooq Malik, CEO and Co-Founder of Rain, noted during a conversation hosted by PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster that their core unlock is actually around merging money movement and reconciliation into a single digital packet.

It’s “the holy grail of money since the beginning of time,” Malik explained, not because settlement is hard, but because cleanly reconciling what moved, why, and for whom is the costly part.

“Transacting is simple sometimes,” he stressed, but ensuring it “flows into your financial statements,” is “audit ready,” and “GAAP compliant” is “enormously complicated.”

This is why the current wave of stablecoin innovation is less about launching consumer-facing apps and more about embedding stablecoins into existing networks.

Payment service providers can maintain the merchant experience while cutting costs in their own operations. Banks can use tokenized dollars to balance intraday liquidity. Multinationals can reduce friction in intercompany transfers.

It’s a bet that Rain recently raised a $58 million Series B to help build.

‘Same, But Better’ Strategy

Rather than pursue shiny new front-end experiences, Rain started by wiring stablecoin balances into what people already do: pay with cards. That decision meant wrestling with authorizations, settlements, reconciliation and chargebacks, all features that consumers take for granted and merchants rely upon.

“We realized in order for us to be in any credible number of conversations after the regulatory clarity came in, we would’ve needed to have started before any of this was becoming institutionally palpable,” explained Malik.

“We started with cards for two reasons. One was because you can pay for most things with a payment card. And the second thing was because card payments are enormously complex, and we wanted to correct the code on authorizing payments and settling payments for this enormously complex way of transacting.”

This approach also positioned Rain to serve both crypto-native companies and conventional programs like health spending accounts (HSAs/FSAs), commuter benefits, and wage access; tackling each by looking to reduce float and operate with 24/7 money.

Webster pressed on the consumer angle. Will stablecoins in commerce look like the halting transition to account-to-account payments, where shoppers resist losing card-like protections?

“That assumes a world where consumers are opting into stablecoins on their own,” Malik replied, noting that some will, and merchants like Stripe or Coinbase are building “natively accepted” stablecoin pathways. But Rain’s own thesis is to offer both paths without a forced choice: Let those who want a stablecoin-native experience have it, while upgrading the rest invisibly.

“Card networks by and large have actually figured out this … risk shift framework … chargeback modality … [and] adjudicate disputes,” Malik said. “All of our underlying account infrastructure and authorization infrastructure also allows for chargebacks, allows for refunds … covered by the same protections that you would get from any other payment card.

“The easiest way to upgrade or increase adoption is by making it look and feel the same,” he added. “Customer experience shouldn’t have to change.”

Stablecoins and Tokenized Deposits

What’s changed lately is the institutional readiness to use those improvements that stablecoins offer in real-world production, not just in sandboxes. But at the same time, and enthusiasm notwithstanding, unanswered policy and accounting questions remain.

Webster asked what executives worry about in one-on-one settings, and Malik was candid: “A lot of it is still as yet undefined. … A lot of the market rules are still as yet undefined … how that impacts accounting practices.”

The technical unknowns are just as real. Which chains win? Which token models dominate? Where do tokenized bank deposits fit relative to third-party stablecoins?

Malik expects that one year from now, we’ll be “talking a lot about how stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits interplay with each other,” and especially “how do we create interoperability between various closed loop systems … and the various open loop systems that already exist.”

PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster is one of the world’s leading experts in payments innovation and the digital economy, advising multinational companies and sitting on boards of emerging AI, healthtech and real-time payments firms. She founded PYMNTS.com in 2009, a top media platform covering innovation in payments, commerce and the digital economy. Webster is also the author of the NEXT newsletter and a co-founder of Market Platform Dynamics, specializing in driving and monetizing innovation across industries.

Farooq Malik is the co-founder and CEO of Rain, a Visa Principal Member and the leading stablecoin-powered card issuer and payments platform.