Schuman Financial: Bringing European Finance Onchain
Despite the euro’s prominent place on the world stage, a large-scale euro stablecoin has remained elusive. That’s where Schuman Financial comes in. With a mission to bridge this gap, Schuman is building EURØP, a fully compliant, euro-denominated stablecoin backed by robust financial and banking infrastructure.
In this conversation, we speak with Martin, the founder and CEO of Schuman Financial. Beside being a serial tech entrepreneur and investor, Martin was formerly a government minister, member of the board of the European Stability Mechanism, and EVP for Europe at Binance. He also holds an advanced degree in applied economics from Harvard University.
Read on to learn more about their journey, the hurdles of navigating regulatory waters, and what the future of euro-denominated finance might look like.
Bankless Ventures: What was the original spark that led you to start Schuman Financial?
Martin: The euro is by far the second biggest global currency after the dollar, financial services are moving on-chain, and yet there is still no major euro stablecoin. That gap was a glaringly obvious business opportunity for us for many years. Plenty of attempts have been made to build a euro stablecoin, but none of them succeeded because nobody has done it right. So we’ve set out to finally fix that.
Bankless Ventures: What’s the biggest problem you’re solving, and why does it matter?
Martin: Europe has an economy with more than 400 million people, and everybody here operates on euros, not dollars. There is no chance it will dollarise anytime soon. The euro-denominated financial market is and will remain the second largest in the world. So if you believe these financial services will also inevitably move on-chain in the coming years–simply because blockchain is just a better technology for storing and moving financial value than anything we’ve had before–then a euro stablecoin market going into hundreds of billions of dollars is inevitable. The only way to settle and transact with euro-denominated financial services on-chain is via a major euro stablecoin. It doesn’t make any sense to settle them against euro fiat, let alone stablecoin dollars. And it’s not just the stablecoin itself–there is a whole infrastructure and interconnections into the traditional financial and fiat systems that you need to build around the stablecoin.
Bankless Ventures: Talk to me about Schuman in more detail, how does it work? How do you interact with it?
Martin: Schuman Financial is the company building the biggest euro-denominated stablecoin and the required infrastructure for moving European and euro-denominated financial services on-chain. Our core initial product is our euro stablecoin, EURØP. We are issuing it through a French company with a MiCA stablecoin issuer license in France which is effectively regulated by the French central bank. We also have the best fiat and banking infrastructure, including Societe Generale as our main banking partner. With this, we can receive payments from our clients going into tens of millions of euros and convert them into stablecoins that they receive in their wallet in less than a minute from when they send them to us.
Institutional clients can mint and burn the stablecoin directly with us, while retail clients will shortly be able to buy at all the main crypto exchanges in Europe. They can then use it for all the usual crypto purposes, including trading, and for more traditional financial services, like payments, remittances, lending and investing in tokenised real-world assets.
Bankless Ventures: How has your vision for the product evolved since you first started working on it?
Martin: Initially, the focus was purely on creating a compliant euro stablecoin, but we realised that the stablecoin alone wasn’t enough. The ecosystem and infrastructure around EURØP have to be just as strong–both in crypto and in TradFi, like the banking and payments services that I’ve mentioned previously. We are increasingly focusing on building these capabilities that will enable more traditional financial services but be much more effective because they will be on-chain.
Bankless Ventures: What has been the most surprising challenge you've faced so far in building this company?
Martin: One of the biggest challenges has been regulatory compliance. Even though MiCA provides clarity, navigating the challenges of compliance, banking, and institutional onboarding has been more difficult than expected. Traditional financial institutions still view stablecoins with scepticism despite the apparent benefits, although we can see that their position on stablecoins is shifting. If your readers are interested in this topic, I’ve explained the rationale in a recent blog.
Bankless Ventures: Can you share a moment where you knew you were on the right track—when something just clicked?
Martin: A few months after we started, a major crypto exchange told us, “Guys, we have been believing in the euro stablecoin potential for years but couldn’t find one that ticked all our boxes. So we’re pretty excited that you are finally building something we can get behind.”
Bankless Ventures: What role does community play in your company’s growth and vision? How can people get involved?
Martin: Unlike traditional finance, crypto is driven by users, developers, and businesses that build on top of stablecoin infrastructure, and community is critical for success. We actively engage with DeFi protocols, fintechs, and institutional players to expand EURØP’s use cases. People can get involved by integrating EURØP into their projects, advocating for adopting euro-based stablecoins, or simply using it and spreading the word.
Bankless Ventures: What excites you most about the future of the industry, and where does your company fit into that vision?
Martin: The future of finance is on-chain. The transition from slow, inefficient and often expensive banking systems and financial products to faster, cheaper and much more accessible financial products running on a blockchain is inevitable. And we can now finally see it in action, like with our yet-to-be-announced cross-border payment product. A payment from a US bank account to a bank account in Europe that takes a few days with the current banking system but less than a few minutes with our stablecoin solution is actually pretty cool.
Bankless Ventures: If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice on day one, what would it be?
Martin: Who would have thought, but it turns out that regulated finance moves way slower than crypto. So brace yourself with patience and just keep building.
Bankless Ventures: What kind of people thrive at your company?
Martin: People who are builders with a positive mindset and can deal with a lot of uncertainty and complexity. We are in a space that combines the revolutionary spirit of crypto with the dry bureaucracy of traditional finance–it takes a lot of resilience to handle that.
Bankless Ventures: What’s the most contrarian belief you hold about building a startup?
Martin: Don’t work like a maniac, and get a lot of sleep. No matter how hard you work, you will not succeed unless you have the best ideas and make the right strategic decisions. And to make those, you need a clear mind, which you will never get if you are constantly submerged in your daily grind.
Bankless Ventures: Who or what has been most influential in shaping how you run the company?
Martin: CZ. He’s probably the most impressive founder and CEO that I’ve ever worked with closely. People in crypto know him as a true visionary, but he also had an incredible and relentless focus on execution and efficiency. Building a great company is ultimately about getting things done exceptionally well and fast.
EURØP is now live on Kraken and Bitvavo!
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