Former Swift CEO Lazaro Campos Joins OpenTrade as Chairman

Lazaro Campos, who previously ran Swift, the messaging network banks use to coordinate cross-border payments, has become chairman of OpenTrade, a London-based company that builds stablecoin yield infrastructure. The company announced the appointment on Friday, nearly six months after it raised $17 million.

OpenTrade was founded in 2023. Its infrastructure lets businesses offer dollar- and euro-denominated returns backed by real-world assets (RWAs), which are traditional financial instruments represented on a blockchain. A fintech, neobank or exchange that wants to pay customers a return on stablecoin balances can plug into OpenTrade instead of building the compliance and operational machinery itself. OpenTrade lists JPMorgan, BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and Fidelity among the institutional partners providing those yields.

Campos framed the move as a continuation of his career in payments infrastructure:

"I've spent most of my career on the infrastructure the world uses to move money. Stablecoins are the next chapter, and yield is what makes them useful to businesses and the people they serve,"

Lazaro Campos, OpenTrade chairman

Swift connects more than 11,000 financial institutions. According to OpenTrade, the network's transaction volumes nearly doubled during Campos's tenure as CEO. He also served on the Bank of England's RTGS infrastructure and CHAPS board.

Growth figures

OpenTrade reports total value locked of $300 million, up from more than $200 million in May, when it closed the $17 million round. That raise brought total funding to $32 million. Backers include a16z Crypto, Circle, Mercury Fund, Notion Capital, AlbionVC and CMCC Global.

The company's volume figures depend on the basis used. OpenTrade says it processed more than $1 billion over the past 12 months, compared with $250 million in the year before the May raise. A separate OpenTrade figure puts cumulative transaction volume at more than $600 million. The two numbers rest on different measurement bases, and the company has not publicly reconciled them.

Chief executive David Sutter previously headed Network Strategy at Centre, the Circle joint venture set up for USDC governance.

What it means

A former Swift chief taking the chair of a stablecoin yield business brings traditional payments governance experience into a segment still defining its regulatory footing. The appointment carries some irony: stablecoins have often been pitched as a faster, cheaper alternative to legacy rails such as Swift.

The business still faces open questions. OpenTrade depends on the health of its yield sources, on fintechs' appetite to offer these products, and on how regulators treat stablecoin returns. The $300 million TVL is a credible start, but the company has to show it can scale as competition for RWA-backed yield intensifies.

The hire echoes other moves by established financial figures into governance roles at digital-asset infrastructure firms, such as Fnality's addition of three former central bankers to its supervisory board.