Mesh Wins Payment Technology Award at Global FinTech Awards
Mesh has been awarded the Payment Technology Award at the Global FinTech Awards 2025, held on 7 October at 155 Bishopsgate in London as part of FinTech LIVE London 2025.
The global crypto payments network earned recognition for introducing innovative payment solutions that dramatically improve transaction efficiency, security and user satisfaction while bridging the gap between cryptocurrency and traditional commerce.
Founded in 2020, Mesh is building the first global crypto payments network, connecting hundreds of exchanges, wallets and payment service providers to enable seamless crypto payments and stablecoin conversions.
The Payment Technology Award recognises breakthroughs in payment solutions that improve transaction speed, security and user satisfaction, celebrating companies that are reshaping how digital transactions occur.
Revolutionary SmartFunding Technology
Mesh has launched a suite of technologies that are reshaping how crypto payments work, pushing the space toward the usability and reliability standards consumers expect from traditional finance.
These innovations are not isolated tools but components of a tightly integrated infrastructure solving long-standing fragmentation issues in the crypto ecosystem.
At the heart of Mesh's offering is SmartFunding, a proprietary system designed to solve a core inefficiency in crypto payments: asset mismatch.
Most users hold a range of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, but merchants prefer to settle in stablecoins such as USDC or PYUSD, or fiat currency, due to their price stability and regulatory clarity.
SmartFunding acts as an intelligent bridge between these two sides, dynamically converting a user's crypto holdings into the merchant's preferred stablecoin or fiat at the time of transaction.
This conversion happens in real time, with no manual intervention, additional logins, or swap steps required by the user. It represents the first system to allow merchants to offer true "pay with crypto" experiences that are as seamless as using a credit card.
The capability has driven a 70% increase in deposit success rates for platforms using Mesh, especially those accepting payments from diverse sources.
In addition to SmartFunding, Mesh has executed strategic integrations to expand reach and remove friction across payment flows.
The Shift4 integration enables over 200,000 merchants across 45+ countries to accept crypto payments that are automatically converted into local fiat currencies.
For merchants, this unlocks access to new revenue streams without introducing volatility or operational complexity. For users, it brings crypto payments into the mainstream through platforms they already trust.
Mesh also added support for Apple Pay, merging modern consumer payment preferences with the capabilities of blockchain.
What makes this integration groundbreaking is its ability to collapse the gap between traditional and decentralised finance.
By embedding crypto payments within one of the most trusted and widely used digital wallets, Mesh turns a complex, multi-step process into a single, familiar tap – bringing the ease of fiat transactions to the world of digital assets.
Measurable Performance Benefits
Mesh's infrastructure is designed to make digital asset payments as fast, seamless, and reliable as possible.
The platform's performance metrics reflect this ambition, showing significant gains in transaction speed, conversion rates, and overall user satisfaction across partners and verticals.
In head-to-head comparisons with legacy crypto funding and on-ramping processes, Mesh reduces transaction completion time by over 80%.
This improvement stems from the platform's ability to connect with over 300 exchanges and wallets in real time, allowing users to access their assets without switching apps, entering additional credentials or waiting for manual swaps to settle.
Once the user authorises a transaction, Mesh handles the rest programmatically.
A major source of failed crypto payments is asset mismatch, where users might initiate a payment thinking they have enough balance, only to discover they lack the specific token required.
SmartFunding resolves this problem at the point of transaction by converting existing assets into the correct token instantly. This capability has driven a 70% increase in deposit success rates for platforms using Mesh.
Mesh's improvements in payment experience have also shown up in business outcomes. Early adopters of Mesh's platform have reported a 40% increase in average order value.
The ability to complete payments quickly and without needing to leave the platform increases user confidence and reduces abandonment during checkout. For merchants, this means more completed transactions and higher revenue per session.
On the user side, satisfaction is driven by simplicity and control. Mesh offers password-based authentication, optional multi-factor security, and a consistent interface for all transactions.
For the end user, the experience feels unified, even though the assets may come from multiple wallets and exchanges behind the scenes.
The integration of Apple Pay is another step that has improved satisfaction by aligning the crypto experience with what consumers already understand from mainstream fintech.
Security-First Architecture
Mesh was built with security as a core architectural pillar, not a layer added after product design.
The company's infrastructure takes a proactive, systems-level approach to risk management, embedding protection at every step of the user and data journey. For a platform that connects to over 300 exchanges and wallets, this is essential.
The Mesh platform operates within a Zero Trust architecture, a model that requires continuous verification of all interactions across the system.
This limits access by default and ensures that users, services, and devices can only interact with what they need. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type II certified, demonstrating a commitment to rigorous operational controls around data security, system availability, and user privacy.
Unlike custodial platforms, Mesh never stores user credentials, private keys, or personally identifiable information. This decision removes some of the highest-risk elements in crypto infrastructure.
Without storing sensitive data, Mesh minimises its surface area for attacks like credential theft, phishing, and internal abuse.
Transactions initiated through Mesh pass directly from user-controlled wallets or exchanges to merchant endpoints. Mesh acts purely as a secure instruction layer, with no custody and no chance for funds to be intercepted or misused by the platform.
Mesh has also removed outdated practices that remain common in the space. Copying and pasting wallet addresses, for example, is a frequent source of fraud, particularly through techniques like address poisoning.
Mesh replaces these workflows with secure authentication, API calls, and interface-level protections that prevent user error and reduce exposure to malicious software.
SmartFunding also enhances security by routing transactions through trusted exchanges and wallets via real-time APIs.
The algorithm considers not only cost and speed, but also the trustworthiness of the routing paths, ensuring that user assets are only ever converted through verified, reputable channels.
Importantly, all of this happens without the user needing to interact directly with third-party platforms, reducing both complexity and risk.
The infrastructure has proven itself internally as well. When Mesh raised its Series B funding round of US$82m, the entire process was executed using its own API stack and stablecoin rails.
This real-world use case demonstrated to customers and partners that Mesh's system is reliable and flexible under pressure.
The Payment Technology Award recognition validates Mesh's comprehensive approach to solving fundamental challenges in crypto payments.
As digital assets increasingly enter mainstream commerce and stablecoins gain regulatory acceptance, Mesh's ability to offer full-stack interoperability – connecting 300+ exchanges and wallets, managing conversion paths, executing transactions and settling payments – enables a frictionless payment loop that has reframed expectations for what crypto payments can achieve.
The award acknowledges Mesh as a transformative force bridging the gap between cryptocurrency potential and mainstream adoption.