Orbi: Making the American Dream a Reality for Mexicans, Without Ever Having to Leave Mexico

The Problem: Living Next to the World's Largest Economy, Without Access to Its Currency

Mexico shares one of the most consequential borders in the world with the United States. Its economy is deeply intertwined with American commerce, and Mexico receives more remittance income from the US than almost any other country on earth. And yet, as a matter of law, individual Mexicans cannot hold a USD bank account.

For Pamela Soto, Co-Founder and Head of Legal and Compliance at Orbi, that contradiction was the founding insight behind the company. "We are in a global world where every transaction actually is with USD," Soto explains. "But sometimes it's very complicated to be connected with the world in the financial area."

The everyday consequences of that gap are significant. A Mexican freelancer doing design work for a US client has no simple way to be paid in the currency her client operates in. A family receiving money from a relative working abroad loses a meaningful share of it to bank fees and multi-day delays. And perhaps most strikingly, a Mexican employee working for a company like Google Mexico, paid in US dollars, has no legal mechanism to simply hold onto those dollars once they arrive.

"When you don't have access to dollars in a country like Mexico, you always dream to have that access to that economy," Soto says. "Stablecoins give you the access to have a partner in the USA that wants to pay you... You don't need to travel to the USA to have a bank account in USD. You don't need to have a passport. You don't need to have a relationship with the USA to have USD."

The Solution: A Full Financial Ecosystem, Not Just a Workaround

Founded in 2022 by Pamela Soto and Leonardo Pérez (Co-Founder and Head of Product), and Adrián Martínez (Co-Founder and CTO), Orbi set out to solve this problem using stablecoins, but built the experience to feel nothing like a crypto exchange.

"We've always tried to make Orbi feel like this modern financial app, slash crypto bank, rather than a crypto product," says Pérez. Users complete an extended KYC and onboarding process, reflecting Orbi's connections to Mexico's SPEI banking network and its Mastercard-issued card program, but from there, the experience mirrors any other fintech app.

Once verified, users can fund their account by depositing crypto directly (Orbi supports ERC-20 and TRC-20 networks) or by transferring pesos via SPEI, which are instantly converted into a stablecoin of the user's choice (USDC, USDT, or USDG, with more options in progress). Orbi also offers virtual accounts in the US and Europe, allowing users to receive funds directly via ACH, Fedwire, or SEPA, eliminating the multi-day delays and steep conversion costs that come with a traditional international wire.

From there, the balance becomes fully usable: it can be spent anywhere Mastercard is accepted through the OrbiCard, held to earn yield through Orbi Boost, moved instantly and fee-free between users through OrbiPay, or spent directly in Orbi's built-in marketplace for bill payments, phone top-ups, and international eSIMs, a feature the team launched specifically so that users never need to convert back to pesos and open another app just to prepare for a trip abroad.

"That goes beyond the fact that you are holding a balance in stablecoins," says Pérez. "We created this as an ecosystem so you don't have to move to another app."

Organic Growth, Built on Real Demand

Orbi has grown its user base without any paid acquisition, relying entirely on word of mouth, and operates with a lean team of just 12 people.

"One of the strongest signals for us, early when we launched the product, is that people were finding Orbi because they were looking for a solution like this," Pérez explains. "We are not trying to convince people that they need to access dollars, because they actually need them."

That organic growth extended to a discovery the founders didn't originally anticipate. "When we started Orbi, a big part of the thesis was that people in Mexico wanted easier access to dollars, only that," says Pérez. "But what we've seen is that they don't only want dollars to spend, they also want to keep part of their money in dollars." Orbi Boost, the company's yield product, has attracted over $1 million in user deposits, a clear signal that digital dollars are becoming, in Pérez's words, "not only a payment method, but also a savings method" for Mexican consumers.

Compliance as a Competitive Advantage, Not a Constraint

Soto's background as a lawyer shaped Orbi's approach to regulation from day one, and it has become one of the company's clearest differentiators in a category still associated in the public imagination with fraud and instability.

"When people don't know about cryptocurrencies, they think about the scam, they think it's dangerous," Soto says. "Regulation not only protects our users, it protects us and our partners." Orbi built its stablecoin infrastructure on USDG, chosen specifically for its regulatory backing under Singapore's Monetary Authority and Europe's MiCA framework, and its full reserve backing in US dollar deposits and short-term Treasuries.

"I enjoy complying and finding the way to comply," Soto says. "If you don't comply with the law, any business is not going to work." That discipline has directly enabled Orbi's ability to attract regulated, institutional-grade partners, "because the clients don't know what is [our stablecoin partner], but we know what it is, and we need a partner that will be there for us."

The Card: A Promise That Actually Holds Up Abroad

For many users, the moment Orbi becomes indispensable is the moment they're traveling and discover that other cards simply don't work. "Sometimes, with some other cards, I'm not going to mention the brands, the card doesn't work, and you are traveling and you need your money and you cannot use it," Soto says. "That's make Orbi different because it's not only a promise that something is going to work. It's not only a promise that your card is going to work around the world. It's a reality that the card works around the world."

That reliability was central to the decision to build the OrbiCard on SoFi Tech Solutions infrastructure. According to Pérez, Orbi's card program is the first crypto-based card program in Mexico authorized by Mastercard, a milestone he credits directly to the depth of support from the SoFi Tech Solutions team. "This actually reflects the understanding but also the support from the whole team in order to achieve this here in Mexico, with Mastercard."

For Soto, the decision to partner with an established, regulated financial infrastructure company, rather than another early-stage provider, was deliberate. "We need partners that already have experience in what they are doing," she says. "You are not another product that is launching and looking to see if it works. You are looking if we are working, if everything is okay... That makes a difference."

Real Stories, Real Impact

The Orbi team points to individual customer moments as proof that the product is delivering on its promise.

One user, traveling in India with his family, discovered mid-trip that his American Express card wasn't accepted at many merchants. Recalling an Orbi account he had opened two years earlier and never used, he funded it via SPEI from Mexico and relied on the OrbiCard to cover the final week of his family's vacation. "All my friends need to use Orbi," he told the team afterward, and has since become one of Orbi's most active ambassadors.

In another case, a Mexican accountant living in Argentina for four years found himself unable to move his savings back to Mexico when he decided to relocate; Mexican banks had closed his accounts due to inactivity and were unwilling to reopen them. Using Orbi, he converted his Argentine pesos into stablecoins and transferred the funds to a new Orbi account in minutes, funding his entire relocation. "He was amazed of all the speed... the cost of doing this operation," Pérez recalls.

A third user in Cancún, one of many Orbi customers in Mexico's tourist regions who receive USD directly from foreign visitors, wrote to customer service simply to say thank you after using Orbi to pay rent on time for the first time. "You changed my life because I didn't know that this could be easy," he wrote.

For Soto, these moments are the point. "We are not only giving a financial service, we are helping someone," she says. "Nothing matters more than someone feeling that your app is helping them, and you know that you are not only helping them, you are helping a family."

What's Next: From Product to Platform

Four years after founding Orbi on what Pérez describes as a bet, the passage of the US GENIUS Act, establishing a federal framework for stablecoin regulation, has validated that bet in real time. "This bet is feeling more like a reality," Pérez says.

That maturity is opening a new chapter for the company. Orbi is now packaging the infrastructure, compliance frameworks, and API connections it has spent four years building into a B2B2C offering, allowing other companies to bring stablecoin-powered financial products to market without building the underlying rails themselves.

The product roadmap continues to expand as well. Orbi's new SoFi Tech Solutions-powered card is now live, and the company's X-Border product has launched individual virtual accounts, giving users the ability to receive US dollars directly via wire and ACH, closing the loop on international payments entirely within the Orbi ecosystem.

The Vision

Asked what financial inclusion in Mexico could look like a decade from now, Soto points to a future where more Mexicans trust digital financial tools enough to fully participate in the formal economy. "If more people understand that Orbi is not going to steal them, that Orbi is fair with the transaction, that means an automatic integration to the financial world of these people," she says.

For Pérez, the product philosophy that got Orbi here, launch, listen, and iterate quickly, is the same one that will get it further. "We can hotfix in one day," he says. "It's more important to correct in a fast way instead of spending a lot of time" theorizing. With no existing playbook to follow in a category this new, Orbi has built its roadmap directly from user feedback, one support conversation at a time.

"For me, it's everything," Soto says. "I work for that. I work to help people."