Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you what up what up guys happy uh happy wednesday uh early in the morning out here in eastern time so
appreciate uh everybody that's showing up um it's being
recorded as well so uh if you guys can't make it or gotta leave early or whatever the case may be
um you know you guys will be able to listen to it after and feel free to share it uh but today
we got a special ama for everybody um you know uh we do these uh on a a biweekly basis and we want to obviously keep the role going.
So we got Ben, our usual co-host, and obviously Simon, our COO.
So Ben, what's going on, man?
It's sunny in Puerto Rico.
That's a beautiful part of the world.
it's not quite so sunny here,
very excited for this show today.
been chatting in the background with Simon and he's got some real,
really exciting information.
we hang around in these spaces a lot and we,
we join these projects a lot and we're surfing around in Telegram and Discord.
And, you know, we're involved in numerous projects and I speak for all of us here.
team to see how real world use of crypto infrastructure is finally starting to feed
its way into the conversation.
And I think Zebek are right at the front of that.
So looking forward to that today.
Do we have a Simon? Yeah, Simon, i don't think we can hear you um
yeah best thing to do simon is drop down oh got you now got you now yes
ben thank you for the intro um i have to say this is a space that is long overdue i mean this is
something that we should have done a long time ago,
but Zabek has been active and building in the payroll space now for four years.
And this is really our first payroll-focused ecosystem space.
So I'm more than excited to be on today to tell the story.
Awesome. Well, look, I mean, we've still got people filing in,
but why don't we just kick it off?
I think just with a bit of an opening discussion, let's have a chat a 30 minutes basis today so we have a lot a lot to get
through and we have some yeah that will be joining well look so crypto meets payroll i love the idea
of this i love as i was saying beforehand i love the idea of like real world crypto utility you
know beyond just ideas but now we're talking real infrastructure,
serving real businesses and real people who are going about their day and their work.
Maybe give us a little bit of a background just so we can bring everyone up to date with what
we're going to be covering today and then we can move it from there. Absolutely. So as I'm sure
our community knows by now, Zabek was founded four years ago as the first decentralized payroll protocol.
We launched on Solana. And what we did is we built a revolutionary technology that would allow users to be paid in any increment around the world, primarily in stable coins.
And that was our core product at the genesis of this company.
And for us, it was always a question
of how we could scale this product.
Given that payroll is such an entrenched and sticky product,
how often do companies change their payroll system, right?
This is a multi-year process.
So for us to turbocharge this grow, we looked at M&A
and M&A has been core to our success as a company over these past couple of years.
So mergers and acquisitions, we're talking about bringing, you know, another company into the Zebek ecosystem.
you know, another company into the Zebek ecosystem. And, you know, this is, I mean,
to be frank, it's incredible that during, you know, a very, very dark and sometimes quite
miserable bear market, you know, Zebek quietly went about its business of acquiring and integrating a U.S. payroll processor and has now been evolving that into the business and coming up with additional products that it can provide to its existing user base.
So maybe, you know, give us a little bit more background on that.
And also, why is now like the right moment to go public with this story?
I mean, it's a good point because we did all of this very quietly through the depths of the bear market.
Of course, crypto was not in vogue right in 2023.
And there was a lot of restrictions around crypto companies even having bank accounts in the U.S.
So we managed to pull off multiple acquisitions of U.S. payment processors and payroll companies, all under Zbeck entities.
And we did this quietly because, you know, we didn't want to have the attention at the time.
We wanted to make sure that this worked and we could actually integrate them with the Zbeck payroll tools that we had.
And now fast forward two years, we're seeing the metrics, we're seeing the KPIs.
I mean, we put out a monthly report every month for our community.
They can see the growth and they can see that this M&A strategy is working.
So now is really the time to open the curtains and share with, with the
community, what we've been building at PGP and at Zebek over these past years.
So for the community to understand better, PGP payroll growth partners,
It's a subsidiary of Zabek. And this
has been our active acquisition entity. And it's been active in the US. We've made three acquisitions
now to date. Paybridge was our very first acquisition. This was a payroll company that
is based in Ohio. They pay over 10,000 people in the US. They have over 200 corporate clients.
The CEO and founder of Payridge will be joining
us on the spaces very soon to talk a little bit more about his business and how Zbeck
has changed his customer experience.
Incredible. And I love the fact that we're going to bring the founder and CEO of the
business that was acquired up. That's awesome that you have that kind of relationship.
And I'm really interested to hear their perspective on it. Simon, why payroll, though?
What's the importance of that to you guys? And what do you think the larger opportunity is with
payroll as a sector, you know, and the guide rails and the infrastructure of crypto?
Well, you need to remember payroll is a massive, right? Everyone that works globally is part of
the payroll economy. We're looking at 500 billion is the industry size in the US. And this is an
industry that has largely gone unchanged for the past 75 years. From the beginning of the swift banking system in the 1950s, you look at payroll
as a bi-weekly or monthly process that is run on banking rails, meaning that companies need to fund
their payroll on Wednesday, the employees will get paid on Friday, employees are paid typically two
to four weeks after actually completing the work. So it's a very old and antiquated system that was disrupted, that was ripe for change. Now, change has only been able to come in recent years with the advent
of blockchain technology and the ability to pay people in faster increments of time at much lower
transaction costs and higher speeds. That is what Zabek pioneered on the Solana blockchain back in
2022. We have been perfecting this product and commercializing this product now for the past three years. And now is really the time that we're finally starting to see good levels of adoption across our portfolio into crypto and stable coin based payroll.
awesome and uh and you know makes total sense right if you're talking about infrastructure
and you're also talking about bringing users into the zebek ecosystem why not provide a better
product uh in terms of infrastructure with a payroll you know um product and and also on board
a whole load of additional users to things that you're
working with. I think that's such a very, very clever, shrewd move, man. Very, very shrewd.
That's something that's easy to do, right? Because when you think about it, selling payroll
on an organic basis, it takes a lot of time, right? Long sales cycles, very sticky client-based. So
M&A for us was a hack. We acquired a captive customer base where we could
then slowly introduce our products. We're going to see what sticks and see what doesn't. And we saw
a lot over our different client profiles and consumer profiles that certain industries value
the Zabek cards, right? They want the pay cards. Other industries really value the real time payroll and getting paid a couple of days early. So for example, healthcare industries,
where people are working in shifts, being able to tell them that, hey, you get paid every day
at the end of your shift. It's a game changer and employers are able to use this as a recruiting
and a retention tool to tell that their employees have these benefits of working for them.
tell that their employees have these benefits of working for them. Yeah, I love that. I love that.
And so, you know, we're talking deepest, darkest bear market, a time when, you know,
the administration in the States, for example, was absolutely not crypto positive. And there
were lots of subpoenas and investigations happening with the SEC and all of those kind of things going on at
the same time. Can you shed a bit of light on how a company that is effectively rooted in
crypto infrastructure goes about acquiring a business like Paybridge?
Well, a lot of it comes back to our partners in Zbeck. And I would bring kind of Circle to the forefront.
So Circle was an early investor in Zbeck.
And they, at the beginning, provided a lot of the functionality for us to move between crypto and fiat rails.
They were instrumental in the infrastructure for our first acquisition.
And going back to your point about the depths of the bear market, we completed our acquisition of Paybridge in March 2023.
And for those who remember, that was a very dark time in crypto history as the USDC stablecoin momentarily lost its peg in light of the Silicon Valley bank drama.
And of course, many crypto businesses at that time were losing their bank account.
So thanks to our healthy relationship with Circle, as well as our relationship with some U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase, we were able to complete multiple acquisitions, starting with Paybridge in March 2023.
Awesome. Awesome. And so what's that been like then in terms of integration into the Zebek ecosystem?
You've got fiat and crypto rails. You need to remain compliant.
What's it like building infrastructure in that kind of that world where existing finance and crypto enabled finance are kind of meeting one another.
And what's the long term roadmap when that happens?
Well, it definitely was a challenge to say the least.
We focus on specific payroll softwares that we plug into.
So our first acquisition of Paybridge was an Assure software.
So Assure is one of the larger HTM payroll softwares in the States.
We built an integration there that plugged into the paybridge system.
That means that employees could see kind of their fiat payroll, their withholdings and deductions, as well as the opportunity to take a portion of that paycheck in stablecoin.
From there, we integrated the Zabec cards, which initially started as a pay card where employees could take a percentage of their paycheck on the MasterCard.
Then it became really a crypto card as well, where employees could take some of the crypto payroll, move it back and forth between the cards seamlessly, send those cards to friends and family globally.
So there was the remittance angle there.
remittance angle there. So it really kind of just started to grow from there. And then of course,
So it really kind of just started to grow from there.
our wage link app, which came out last year as well, served as an early wage access app where
employees could receive their paycheck up to five days early if they were receiving fiat payroll.
And then if they were doing crypto payroll, they could of course receive it every single day
that they worked. So we're really excited with this ecosystem we built. It's we're seeing the metrics improve month over month.
The adoption rates are going higher and not just really with Gen Z's because
initially we thought it was the under 30 demographic that would be opting into
this, but we've seen a lot of success with the cards across age groups and
So that makes us realize that what we're building here is really not just for
crypto native people. It's for anybody that wants a better payroll experience and wants to have more
control over their money. Because when you think about the other options here, you don't have your
payroll on time, you're looking at payday lenders where you're paying very, very high interest rates.
And you're looking at other money, you know, early pay providers, right, which are charging
exorbitant fees. So Zabek's mission from the beginning was all about financial inclusivity,
financial freedom and financial fairness and our products deliver on all three.
That is, that's really poignant and pertinent as well to my next point. you know when i come on and i co-host with uh with platforms and and
and you know builders in the web3 space i don't like to talk about other tokens but i'm gonna
i'm gonna just draw a little comparison here because obviously you're what you're talking
about here in terms of like enabling financial freedom, enabling people of all ages to be able to access finance earlier
than they would have received beforehand,
thinking about like cross-border payments and all those kind of things.
It feels very, very similar to Ripple and XRP and what's going on there.
But of course, like, you know, there's a lot that's being built there
in terms of a community and the infrastructure.
But that feels like it's all very like, hey, we're building this now for tomorrow. Whereas
what's going on here with Zebek is like, this is happening right now. Like people are genuinely
being able to use your tools, use your products and access their finances, like in a very,
very different way today. And you are testing and you are learning and
you're doing this with enterprise clients and you know you've got all kinds of tools and things like
that and you know there's a real difference in terms of you know the the market the market cap
for example of like xrp and zebek for example like am i do you think i'm crazy making a comparison
like that i mean look you're not the first one to make it. But I think this really goes back to our mindset as a company. And we are an execution first
company, right? We do not make big promises to the market until we can prove that they work first.
That's why our M&A strategy was under wraps for the past two years, because we wanted to make
sure that we could integrate these clients
and we could deliver before sharing with them, sharing with the market. So yes, there's a lot
of similarities, I think, with other payment tokens out there. But I don't think that any
of those other payment tokens have done the same level of user adoption that Zbeck has.
And now is really our time to finally start telling our story to
the market. I'm really looking forward to hearing more of that story. Also the story of people who
are using it. And I think later on in this show, we're going to try and bring some people up,
and see if they've got a lived experience of actually using the tools that we're talking
about here. Before we get to that, though, great opportunity for us to actually speak to Tony from Paybridge.
So he's founder and CEO. Help me with his surname, Simon, because I can't.
Tony Giles is on the spaces today. Welcome, Tony, if you're here.
I really appreciate you coming up and joining us today.
We've just been talking about, you know,
Zebek and the mergers and acquisitions strategy
and how Paybridge, you know, came part of the Zebek ecosystem.
And I wonder if I could just ask you a few questions about that.
Well, look, before we get going, it'd be great to kind of just, you know, understand a bit
more about how long you've been at Paybridge and like when you founded it.
Paybridge was actually founded in 2008.
So I've been there approximately 15 years and I've been in the payroll space about 25
or 30 years myself professionally.
I love that. And what makes Paybridge unique in the U.S. payroll sector?
So, you know, we found a good niche market. We became a leader in the charter school space.
Charter schools are big in the U.S. And we also admitted acquisition at December of 23 of school payroll services to further market our presence and solidify ourselves as the leading payroll provided for charter schools.
A little bit more about pay rate. We have about 225 clients. We serve, again, as Simon said earlier, about 10,000 employees.
We have a very high retention rate with our clients because we offer a personalized customer service.
Each of our clients has a person they either can email or talk to on a daily basis.
So they're not calling into an 800 number because we like to keep that,
maintain that small town Midwest feel for our clients.
And I think really important too, right?
When people are talking about their finance and stuff,
it's just, it's a really nice touch to have that kind of,
that personal interaction with people.
So, you know, when you're talking about that,
that small town Midwest kind of approach,
and then suddenly there's this partnership with Zebek and PGP,
like why did you decide to make that move and partner with Zebek?
So again, one of the things when you have a payroll company like mine,
we were getting calls every day or emails from different private equity groups about
making an acquisition. And I was introduced to Zebek through a consultant. And really what stood
out to me is their mission to redefine the payroll industry. You know, putting, you know, really
resonated with me the ability to provide a better use experience for our clients and for our payroll users
that's awesome that's awesome and uh and you know i think it's it's really it's really incredible
that you kind of like looked forward like that i think that's um credit to you yeah and really
as simon said earlier you know we did the acquisition of march of 23 yeah really a good
for me personally and professionally and also for my employees and our
clients to also. Yeah, well, tell me a bit about that. And so since partnering with Zebek and PGP,
what have they done for your clients and the employees that you serve? And how have they
enhanced that user experience? The first thing was that we rolled out the pay cards to our
employees, probably 30% of our employees are
hourly and they were getting paid checks. The ability to give them a pay card enhances their
experience. They don't have to go to the bank. They can just use an ATM to cash their check.
And also it's a really good experience for our clients, our users, because they don't have to
or users because they don't have to reconcile their bank account when they use checks.
reconcile their bank account when they use checks. It just makes life a lot simpler for them.
It just makes life a lot simpler for them.
The other thing, again, they provided was, you know, the EWA, the payment system.
So, again, a lot of hourly employees like to get paid early.
So they use, you know, the payday lenders, which, you know, some of them have an APR of like 200%.
So now we can use, you know, Zebik Rails for real-time payroll, you know,
whether they get paid early through a wage link or using Zebik through crypto where they can get their earnings through stables in real time.
I believe, you know, I also believe that the blockchain technology will become the future of payroll.
So, you know, we introduced this payroll option to our users and we've introduced it to them so they can become familiar with the
crypto in the blockchain oh that's awesome so like what that that means that leads on nicely
to my last question which is like you say you've you know you founded this business 15 years ago
what's the evolution of the payroll industry like being in the last say decade and and then you know
and it sounds like you're very you know, you're positive about the outlook with
crypto. What do you think will define the next 10 years? Yeah, well, the thing about payroll really
hasn't changed in 70 years, right? The way people process payroll today is, you know, they use the
old ADP system, you know, it's basic, you know, they've used that for years, it's kind of the
system is where they essentially, you know, they get people get paid either weekly or every two weeks, you know, so it's pretty much a standard operation.
The industry is now, you know, it's ripe for some disruption.
You know, the younger generation is hungry to get more innovative payroll solutions and
They don't want their payroll fund to be held hostages for two weeks.
You know, they want to get the money as soon as they can get it.
The solution for this issue is the crypto blockchain. It is the only real feasible
solution to make this work, given the limitations of our traditional banking rails.
You know, with lower fees, faster settlement times, faster processing and cross-border
payments, it just makes it more convenient and easy for the younger generation.
It just makes it more convenient and easy for the younger generation.
And I power to you, man, for taking a business that you had been running for a significant period of time and really looking forward.
I think that's absolutely amazing.
Simon, do you want to add anything to that?
The partnership with Tony has been greater than any of us could ever have imagined.
I mean, Paybridge has been the perfect fit for the Zbeck ecosystem.
Our first acquisition, of course, we took a risk on it.
We're the first time a crypto company has bought a real-world payroll company in the U.S.
But as we said, it's kind of been the first of many acquisitions.
It's proven our product market fit.
And from there, we've gone on to acquire two additional businesses, as Tony mentioned, with SBS. We are now one of the largest payroll providers of charter schools in the US,
which is such a great vertical because we're paying teachers and teachers are then explaining
these concepts to the next generation, to their students. So it's building the cycle,
it's strengthening the ecosystem, and there's a lot more to come from here.
Absolutely fantastic. Excuse me, just clearing my throat there sorry about that um thanks for for going through that with me uh tony really really appreciate it have a great day and uh
and yeah thanks for thanks for giving up your time thank you thank you thank you uh simon okay
well look we've got goodness just over five minutes left. I think great opportunity for us.
I know in the background, the team have been bringing up a few accounts.
So we've got some people.
I know we asked the community for a bit of like, you know,
maybe, you know, their perception of this,
having perhaps used the payroll system and some Zebek products.
We have listeners in the audience today,
both Zebek token holders, Zebek users.
We would love to hear their experiences
And if they have any questions,
so I've got two people, I think, coming up.
So I've got Brittany, I think.
Oh, hey, Brittany, how are you?
Yeah, very good. Thank you. So you, well, why don't you maybe give us a little bit of context about like how you've been using the system and what that's meant to you?
Absolutely. So I live in South Carolina and I'm a nurse here.
And I've been using the Civic Payroll system for quite a while.
I've been using the Civic Payroll system for quite a while.
Before my employer added this benefit, I was having to resort to payday loans just to make
it kind of paycheck to paycheck.
And I was paying the 80 to 100% APR.
And now that I have the opportunity to get access to my real life funds each and every day, I've been able to drop the habit of payday loans, get those paid off and start saving money that I was previously paying for all of those fees.
And, you know, we see this a lot in the industry. So it's definitely been a blessing for us. I love that that's fantastic. Simon is there anything you
wanted to cover on that point? I mean it feels great really being able to see this payday loan
industry slowly get crushed because at the end of the day they're taking advantage of working
Americans which is not okay. Yeah, totally agree. Brittany,
thank you so much for coming up. It's really lovely to hear that. I'm so pleased that you
are having a positive experience like that. Absolutely. Nice one. Thank you so much. Right.
Now, if I'm right, because I know we were speaking to people to see if they wanted to come up.
I think we've got someone called Randall. is that randall is that you there yeah hello hey how you doing i love your pfp by the
way as well pacino rocks yeah uh my name is randall carter and i'm a long haul trucker
out of oh nice hey how you doing good good uh for years i had to take out payday loans
just to make like ends meet between paychecks sometimes paying 200 interest um you know i had
to wait two weeks for the my employees to get paid uh and it was hard to cover like bills and surprise expenses but ever since
I started using Zabek I get paid after every shift and I haven't touched a payday loan since
and I feel like I'm in control of my own money now using Zabek. Absolutely love that and I think
you know Simon this is testament to what you were saying
earlier right like financial freedom and and being in charge of your own expenses your own
finance like it um it goes a long way right to be able to create tools like this and then to hear
hear people talk about how they use them that's awesome it's it's a great to see it and i mean as
a in the trucking business of course there's a lot
of use of pay cards when you think about it right being able to pay expenses um when you're on the
road cover your gas so the zavec cards for the trucking industry are much more than just getting
your salary right it's about managing the cost of delivering the service yeah i love that um randall
thanks for coming up man i really appreciate you uh taking your time
there yeah no problem love that thank you um have we got have we got anyone else guys i'm not sure
if we have anyone else that's due to come up i mean it's pretty good timing if not we have a
couple minutes left so let's let's open up the floor to others yeah anyone else want to um maybe raise a hand and uh and yeah i got a few requests
so uh tim golf meta i'm a juicer um you want sick hey tim are you there
yeah hey how's it going hey tim how are you man doing good uh i'm just about to drop my son off at
school and uh it's actually uh excited to see you guys uh hosting a space because i i've been a firm
believer in your guys's cryptocurrency for a while now just like the whole credit card payment usage
and whatnot and i've been trying to tell people to get on board,
but I guess they'll probably FOMO in when it starts to really take off.
So that's kind of how it goes.
But I was trying to sign up for that card,
but I just wanted to get a little more information about it.
Are you talking about our newest product, the ZBEC Carbon Card?
What's that? Are you talking about our newest product, the ZBEC Carbon Card?
Simon, can you hear that? there you are sorry um before we get into technicals on your
specific case I think uh we'll point you to some of our how-to materials um which we'll share
later on on telegram or twitter but the the carbon card is a great product it's a game-changing
product 10k a day and spend no fees no kyC. So we highly recommend everyone checking that out.
And it's available in over 100 countries.
Thank you, Simon, for jumping in with that.
I was going to say exactly the same thing.
Where can people find the technical information about it?
Go to our website, card.sebek.io.
All the information's there.
We regularly post how-to videos.
And if anyone in the audience
is going to be in New York City
for the Solana Accelerate Conference,
please stop by the new Solana Spaces store
We will have representatives from Zebeck there
to sign you up for Zebeck cards
and even give away preloaded ZBEC cards.
So it's going to be a great.
Oh, Ben, just to hop in real quick.
The Space Store is going to be live, I think, on May 19th is when it's opening.
We are actually going to be hopping on the Solana Spaces store AMA or Spaces.
They're going to be doing tomorrow.
If you guys want to hop on tomorrow on that, we'll do an announcement as well.
I hope that gives you the information you need.
Nice one. Well, thank you for coming
up. Yeah, you're welcome. Do we want
to bring up one more? Let's do
one more, and then we wrap. So
member with a question or comment?
Hey, XRP Panama, how you doing?
All right, I don't think he's...
Okay, I'm here. I'm here.
Oh, there you go. How you doing?
Good, good. First of all, I want to thank you guys for putting this thing together and learn so much.
Been tracking you guys for a while. It seems like it's the real deal. And my question is this,
as we're trying to grow on both sides of the aisle, I'm going to surprise you with this one.
How do we possibly join your team? Is there a link or something that you guys looking to grow? Obviously the client base, but people like myself, when we see a project, obviously I am still really big and love XRP, but it's not all about just one chain.
And I love what you guys are doing, and especially with the whole blockchain and incorporating this all together.
I'd love if, and I'll just bow out if, you know, if there's some opportunities to work with you guys.
I'm probably not the only one on this call that's thinking the same thing.
Maybe you could speak to a little bit about that because that also speaks to growth because, you know, the more people you have working with you, the faster things grow.
So that was just my comment and sort of question.
First of all, we really appreciate the interest.
I'd say we have a global workforce
of around 50 around the world.
We have a lot of members in the US as well as abroad.
As we mentioned in this call,
we have our payroll businesses in the US, which in turn
employ additional people.
So if you're interested in working with us, please reach out to us on Twitter or Telegram
We'll see if there's a role that we can slot you in because we definitely are always looking
to hire great candidates.
And on the client side, if you have any companies out there that would benefit from ZipX payroll tools, send them our way and we'd happily onboard them.
Are you guys with the gyms?
Are y'all working with any of the big chains?
Because I got a friend that's a proprietor over 20 stores with crap.
Right now the name slips my mind because there's so many of them.
You guys working with any gyms?
We have a number of gym clients um send them our way i'm sure that there's a solution that
they could use okay thank you appreciate it nice one putting him to work straight away simon i love
that yeah absolutely uh xrp panama thank you so much for coming up appreciate that um okay well look
that was uh you know for we were never going to get it in all in 30 minutes but that feels like
a nice uh nice point to stop at simon i really really appreciate you taking the time today to
chat with me um this has been super interesting absolutely love where you're going with it think
it's a really really interesting interesting perspective and and also like just very very bold to go out there during a bear
market and acquire a business like that and and now obviously super super smart given the number
of people that you're able to bring into your ecosystem and the different products that you're
able to test and and learn with so really really great stuff. Thanks so much for coming up and joining today.
This was great spaces again.
Look out for another one in the next two weeks.
We are trying to do spaces more regularly
to keep our community abreast
on all the exciting developments at Zbeck.
So we'll be making an announcement soon
But I hope everyone today learned a little bit more about what we're doing in the payroll space,
how M&A fits into Zbeck's broader vision for reshaping the financial ecosystem. Ben,
thank you as always for being such a great host. Thank you, JJ.
No worries, man. My pleasure, honestly.
pleasure honestly and until the next one yeah great stuff before we close ben uh xrp panama
and anybody that uh has any you know uh uh you know people that want to apply some of our uh
tools feel free to email support at zevic.io and i can i can get you guys back through there
just so it's easy love that thanks so much man i really appreciate that okay love it thank you
very much for joining to the audience here today I really appreciate that. Okay. Love it. Thank you very much for
joining to the audience here today. Really, really appreciate you all. To those who came
up and spoke, brilliant. Tony, it was really great to get to meet you as well. Have a wonderful day,
everyone. Thank you. Bye-bye, guys.