Wirex BaaS Powers Utorg's 2M-User Neobanking Stack as Soroban Infrastructure Goes Live with Ultra Stellar

Wirex completed two significant infrastructure deployments within days of each other in early April 2026, signalling an accelerated push to position its Banking-as-a-Service stack as the connective tissue between blockchain networks and real-world financial systems. On April 8, the company confirmed that its BaaS platform now powers the card and banking layer for Utorg, the Tallinn-based fintech whose Hÿper App counts more than 2 million users across 190+ countries. Six days earlier, on April 2, Wirex and Ultra Stellar jointly announced the activation of native payment infrastructure built directly on Soroban, Stellar's smart contract environment, introducing a production-ready stack of cards, accounts, payouts, and stablecoin yield for the Stellar ecosystem.

Wirex BaaS Completes Utorg's Neobanking Stack

Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia, Utorg holds a virtual currency service licence and PCI DSS Level 2 certification. The company's Hÿper App, designed around self-custodial wallets and zero-fee crypto purchases, had previously focused on the on-ramp side of the user journey: fast onboarding, AI-powered KYC, and instant crypto acquisition. The missing piece was a regulated spending layer that would let users convert and deploy those holdings without leaving the application.

The Wirex BaaS integration closes that gap through a single API connection. Utorg users can now access virtual and physical debit cards with Apple Pay and Google Pay support, EUR and USD IBAN accounts backed by SEPA Instant and Faster Payments rails, and real-time crypto-to-fiat conversion at the point of sale with no prefunding requirements. DeFi yield on idle balances is also available within the enterprise compliance framework Wirex provides to partners.

"Our BaaS platform exists so that builders like Utorg can focus on their product instead of piecing together payment infrastructure from scratch. Utorg has built something exceptional. With Wirex BaaS, they now have the card and banking rails to complete that journey from purchase to spend. That's what full-stack BaaS makes possible." - Daniel Rowlands, General Manager, Onchain Finance at Wirex [1]

"We built Utorg to make crypto truly accessible. Zero fees, self-custody, and an experience that works for anyone, anywhere. Wirex BaaS gives us the card infrastructure to match. Now our users can buy crypto, hold it in their own wallet, and spend it in the real world, all without ever leaving the Hÿper App." - Eugene Petrakov, CEO and Co-founder at Utorg [1]

The combined reach extends to more than 80 million merchants across 130 countries through Wirex's principal Visa and Mastercard membership. Utorg joins a roster of platforms that have adopted the Wirex BaaS stack, including Cardano, Simple App, COCA, Chimera Wallet, and Collective Memory. [2]

From Utorg's perspective, the architecture preserves the self-custody principle that defines the Hÿper App. Users retain control of their private keys throughout the spending flow: conversion happens at checkout rather than in advance, so assets remain on-chain until the moment they are needed. [2]

Ultra Stellar and Wirex Activate Soroban Payment Layer

The second announcement, dated April 2, addresses a different market segment: the Stellar blockchain ecosystem itself. Ultra Stellar, the San Francisco-based company responsible for the LOBSTR wallet and the StellarX decentralised exchange, partnered with Wirex to co-develop infrastructure that lives natively on Soroban rather than relying on bridges or external middleware.

Soroban is Stellar's smart contract platform, introduced to enable programmable financial logic directly within the Stellar network. By building on Soroban, the joint infrastructure inherits full interoperability with Stellar wallets, tokens, and decentralised applications without requiring developers to connect external systems. The practical implication is that a fintech platform or independent developer operating within the Stellar ecosystem can embed cards, bank accounts, global payouts, and yield generation through a single on-chain integration. [3]

The production stack covers five service categories. Stablecoin-powered virtual bank accounts allow users and businesses to store, receive, and manage digital assets with real-world functionality. Fiat-to-stablecoin conversion runs at a true 1:1 rate, removing spreads that typically appear in bridged solutions. Co-branded cards issued through the platform are accepted at more than 80 million merchants globally. Payout and settlement connectivity spans ACH, SEPA, PIX, FPS, SWIFT, and Push-to-Card rails, linking on-chain balances directly to traditional financial infrastructure. Finally, native stablecoin yield of up to 6% APY is available with full liquidity and no lock-up periods. [3]

"This partnership goes beyond integration. Together with Ultra Stellar, we are building a native payment layer for the entire Stellar ecosystem. By combining Wirex's global payment connectivity with Ultra Stellar's deep expertise in Stellar, we're creating infrastructure that allows developers, businesses, and future AI agents to access real-world financial services directly on-chain. Our goal is to make Stellar one of the leading ecosystems for stablecoin-powered payments." - Pavel Matveev, CEO and Co-Founder of Wirex [3]

"Ultra Stellar has helped scale Stellar through applications like LOBSTR and StellarX, which serve millions of users worldwide. Together with Wirex, we are building and evolving native payment infrastructure on Stellar, enabling developers, platforms, and users to access real-world financial capabilities directly on-chain." - Gleb Pitsevich, Founder of Ultra Stellar [3]

The infrastructure also supports autonomous AI agents executing programmatic cross-border stablecoin transactions. With Wirex serving 7 million users across 130+ countries and Ultra Stellar running millions of active accounts through LOBSTR and StellarX, the combined user base represents a material starting point for adoption. [3]

Two Deployments, One Strategic Direction

Taken together, the two announcements illustrate Wirex's approach to the BaaS market: provide a modular, regulation-compliant infrastructure layer that blockchain-native products can embed without rebuilding payment plumbing. The Utorg deal demonstrates the model in a consumer super-app context; the Soroban initiative demonstrates it at the ecosystem level, where developers across the Stellar network access identical capabilities.

Wirex has processed more than $20 billion in transactions since its founding in 2014 and holds principal Visa and Mastercard membership, giving BaaS partners direct access to the major card networks. [1][2] Regulatory coverage across 130+ countries is a prerequisite for any partner targeting Utorg's geographic footprint or the global settlement rails Soroban now connects.

For Stellar, the Ultra Stellar partnership positions the network among the first Layer 1 blockchains with a complete, natively on-chain financial stack covering accounts, cards, payouts, and yield settled without leaving the chain's own smart contract environment.

References

[1] PR Newswire, April 8, 2026: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/utorg-taps-wirex-baas-to-unlock-onchain-neobanking-services-for-300-000-hyper-app-users-302736960.html [2] Investing.com, April 8, 2026: https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/wirex-and-utorg-bring-seamless-cryptotocard-spending-to-2m-users-worldwide-4602997 [3] PR Newswire, April 2, 2026: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wirex-and-ultra-stellar-launch-native-stellar-payment-infrastructure-to-power-millions-of-users-and-ai-agents-302732712.html