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Teymour Farman-Farmaian is the co-founder and CEO of Higlobe, a cross-border payments company that uses stablecoins to move money to freelancers, contractors and businesses in emerging markets.
Before founding Higlobe in 2020, he spent roughly two decades in senior roles at consumer technology companies. At Google he worked on international operations and partnerships from 2003 to 2009.
He then became General Manager of Strategic Partnerships at Zynga and later Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Acquisition and Retention Officer at Spotify, where he was involved in the company's US launch. He later served as Senior Vice President and Head of USA at Xapo, a bitcoin custody and digital bank business. He co-founded Higlobe with Jeff Bolton, drawing on his own experience of payment fees on global payouts.
His current focus is Higlobe's USD, EUR and GBP receiving accounts, stablecoin settlement and card products for professionals paid by international clients.
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Latest interview · Apr 16, 2026Higlobe moves cross-border payments in under 60 seconds at near-zero costWatch the episode →
Key points
- HiGold provides USD accounts for global south users to hold, save, invest, and transfer dollars via stablecoins without traditional banking fees.
- The primary adoption barrier in emerging markets is lack of local on and off-ramps, not technology, requiring country-by-country infrastructure development.
- HiGold operates as a crypto-native company partnering with local exchanges rather than layering stablecoins onto legacy SWIFT-based payment rails.
- Traditional cross-border payments cost 6% and take five days because they rely on netting models and SWIFT infrastructure that HiGold bypasses.
- The global south represents a billion-person middle class market with infinite demand for dollar-denominated accounts due to local currency inflation and instability.
In their own words
“When the marginal cost of a product goes to zero, prices tend to zero.”
“The money transfer is just my relationship hook with my clients.”
