Today, we are excited to interview the innovative team behind UR, a groundbreaking neobank that launched on June 19, built on the Mantle network, the largest Layer 2 solution on Ethereum with over $3 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL). UR is the world’s first fully blockchain-based neobank, designed to help users effortlessly spend, save, and invest across fiat and crypto finances in one unified account. (Cover photo: Tim Chen, Global Head of Strategy at Mantle)
UR addresses the challenges faced by individuals in emerging markets who rely on USD stablecoins to protect their savings from local currency fluctuations. By blending traditional finance access with blockchain-native architecture, UR enables users in over 40 countries to manage their daily finances securely.
Key features include Swiss-regulated bank accounts, a crypto Mastercard debit card, and seamless fiat-crypto fund transfers, making UR a comprehensive neobanking solution for everyday financial needs.
With an all-in-one fiat and crypto account supporting multiple currencies, tokenized deposits, and NFT-based identity for secure financial management, UR is poised to redefine how users interact with their assets. As it embraces the future of finance, UR will also introduce DeFi-native features like yield on idle balances and crypto-collateralized credit.
In this interview, we will explore the vision behind UR, its unique offerings, and its role in the competitive landscape of stablecoins.
Can you share the inspiration behind UR’s creation and how it addresses the challenges of digital wealth and currency devaluation in today’s economy?
Our inspiration for UR stemmed from observing the global state of digital finance and cross-border payments today. There’s an acute paradox experienced by millions of people in emerging economies: individuals hold USD stablecoins as savings to hedge against local currency devaluation, yet they are unable to integrate that capital into their day-to-day financial lives.
"Traditional banks and crypto wallets have long operated in separate silos and the ability to bridge that gap often comes with the risk of getting debanked. UR was designed to unify these worlds by offering seamless movement between fiat and crypto."
Mantle Team
UR defines the seamless interconnectivity between crypto and everyday finances: it’s anchored on the Mantle Network, paired with a real-world Swiss-backed multi-currency account, and accessible through Mastercard debit cards for global banking rail access.
Upon UR’s full public access rollout in H2 2025, users will be able to integrate identity, custody, and multi-asset spending while retaining access to familiar financial management services. Digital assets have moved away from speculative use cases and are now capable of enabling real financial empowerment.
With UR, we’re building infrastructure that works reliably and securely.
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How does UR aim to fulfill the promise of financial sovereignty for users, and what specific features set it apart from traditional banking systems?
UR delivers financial sovereignty by giving users control over both fiat and crypto assets in one place. Users receive Swiss IBANs, maintain tokenized deposits, and rely on NFT-backed identity systems for seamless financial management, while ensuring users’ funds are safe, accessible, and fully transparent.
Unlike traditional banks that lock users into opaque legacy rails, UR is designed to facilitate rapid fiat-crypto conversion and global spend via a multi-currency debit card, all without moving out of the UR ecosystem. This unified account model enables true autonomy over personal wealth.
As the race for stablecoin dominance heats up, what role do you see UR playing in this competitive landscape, and how does it differentiate itself from existing solutions?
The emerging competition among stablecoins underscores just how central digital dollars will become to global finance. UR serves as the infrastructure that enables them to function in everyday life. We are not competing on reserve assets; we are competing on utility and user experience. UR’s strength lies in integration.
Users can hold USD, CHF, EUR, or RMB with 1:1 backed deposits and spend through a Mastercard debit card at merchants globally, all in one interface. This contrasts sharply with most competing solutions, which often offer stablecoins without native on-ramps, or crypto wallets without traditional rails – effectively just one-way off-ramping solutions.
By enabling native on-ramping, UR completes the user journey flywheel to enable spend, save, and earn across fiat and crypto all in one place.
What unique user experiences or interfaces can customers expect from UR, and how do these features enhance the usability of both fiat and crypto transactions?
Once available for public access in H2 2025, users can expect a single, streamlined application that will guide them from fiat deposits to stablecoin conversion, spending, and on-chain investments. The onboarding sequence will mirror familiar money app setups while unfolding into wallet-driven, blockchain-native experiences, complete with transparent fees, instant FX, and multi-currency support.
Users would no longer need multiple applications or complicated wallet addresses. A single dashboard will show real-time balances across fiat and digital assets. Meanwhile, another tap will initiate payments or global transfers. This is financial convenience without compromising transparency and control.
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Given the current macroeconomic environment, how do you foresee institutional capital allocation shifting towards blockchain-based solutions like UR?
Institutional capital now looks to the blockchain as a solution to long-held structural inefficiencies in the financial ecosystem, particularly in yield scarcity and FX fragility. UR’s Swiss-backed all-in-one account for fiat-crypto banking, tokenized deposits, and familiar infrastructure will make it an appealing solution for institutions seeking responsible innovation. Leveraging blockchain technology removes a lot of traditional friction points.
Can you elaborate on how UR converges traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi)? What are the implications of this convergence for everyday users?
UR was built on the premise that financial systems can no longer exist in silos. We combined traditional finance rails with on-chain infrastructure, allowing users to deposit fiat via SWIFT, SEPA, or SIC, convert stablecoins to fiat, and spend via Mastercard, all without logging into multiple platforms. For everyday users, the implications are immediate: no more exchanging between siloed accounts or paying hidden off-ramp fees.
Instead, users move seamlessly between traditional financial systems and blockchain, with both speed and transparency. It is banking reimagined, not by replicating DeFi, but by embedding it natively into TradFi-grade environments.
UR is enabled in over 40 countries. What challenges and opportunities have you encountered in expanding UR’s services globally, and how do you address regulatory concerns?
Global expansion has shown us the vast variability of regulatory requirements, but also voracious appetite for unified financial platforms. We have integrated Swiss infrastructure standards which serve as a global baseline for quality and reliable trust. Challenges range from cross-border identity verification to local payment system integration.
Our approach builds a modular architecture that adapts based on the way people and businesses move between digital assets and fiat currencies, while an NFT-driven identity model ensures fraud resistance verified on the blockchain, ultimately enabling UR to scale responsibly across jurisdictions.
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With Mantle being the largest Layer 2 network on Ethereum and its focus on mass adoption of token-governed technologies, how does UR fit into Mantle’s broader vision for ecosystem growth?
UR is one of our first consumer-facing solutions that connects Mantle’s blockchain scalability core to global retail use. It proves that blockchain can underlie basic financial services and provide everyday users with a convenient interface that is fully integrated with Mantle’s institutional-grade on-chain protocols and rails, which ultimately expands the ecosystem’s reach to the next billion users.
What role do you see the Mantle community playing in shaping the future of neobanking and blockchain-based financial solutions?
The Mantle community is our bedrock, and its input defines the architecture, governance, and evolution of our ecosystem. This decentralized participation model marks a clear departure from legacy financial systems, where users are rarely consulted and almost never empowered to make critical product and business decisions.
At Mantle, we believe the future of financial services will be increasingly shaped by the people who use them, not just by those who build or regulate them. We’re not just building for our users, we’re building with them.
In a world where financial infrastructure is being rebuilt from first principles, we have an opportunity to encode values such as transparency, inclusion, and interoperability at the protocol level, not just as a feature set, but as a foundation.
"Our differentiator lies in the fact that blockchain is in our DNA and core to our product, not just an add-on. As we move toward a future where token-governed systems power more of the global economy, UR, as a consumer-facing neobank built on Mantle’s modular L2, reflects that ambition."
Mantle Team
By harnessing this collective potential, UR will evolve to serve real users in diverse settings, and this democratization of financial innovation is how we bring crypto to our users’ everyday lives.
