We recently connected with Lorenzo Pellegrino, the newly appointed Chief Banking Officer at Nexo, a digital assets wealth platform designed to empower clients to grow, manage, and preserve their crypto holdings.
Nexo’s mission is to enable wealth creation by focusing on tailored solutions that build enduring value, supported by 24/7 client care.
Since 2018, Nexo has reportedly provided opportunities to clients in over 150+ jurisdictions.
Their platform combines technology with a client-first approach, offering various savings products, crypto-backed loans, trading tools, and liquidity solutions, such as a crypto debit/credit card.
Our conversation with Lorenzo Pellegrino is shared below.
Crowdfund Insider: You’ve spent time shaping digital wallet and payments businesses (most notably at Skrill and NETELLER).
Given that background, what specific “lessons learned” are you bringing into your CBO role at Nexo—especially when it comes to balancing speed, convenience and regulatory rigor in the crypto context?
Lorenzo Pellegrino: At Nexo, our goal is to make users comfortable and confident by offering familiar payment options, ultimately driving higher conversion and acquisition rates. We’re expanding funding opportunities, integrating local payment rails, and improving ease of use in every market we serve. When innovation feels familiar, reliability becomes instinctive—and that’s what drives adoption.
Earlier in my career at NETELLER and Skrill, I saw how much difference that sense of familiarity makes. By giving people local ways to fund and withdraw, we turned new technology into everyday behavior—and that same idea guides our work at Nexo.
Crowdfund Insider: Nexo has publicly emphasized its mission to bring digital-assets closer to everyday finance—things like the dual-mode Nexo Card, global on- and off-ramps, cross-border settlement infrastructure.
From a banking-infrastructure vantage, what do you view as the single biggest bottleneck or friction point in enabling “crypto assets plus real-world utility”, and how will you target that?
Lorenzo Pellegrino: If you examine the global landscape—MiCA in Europe, stablecoin frameworks in the U.S., and CBDC pilots across Asia—financial infrastructure is being rewritten in real-time. The end game is alignment: how to ensure digital-asset platforms and banks can operate and collaborate smoothly under the same language of compliance and trust.
Banks are progressively building partnerships with digital-asset platforms as they refine their approach to this sector. Our goal is to build trust by clearly demonstrating how we operate. We openly disclose our customer profiling standards, transaction monitoring systems, and partnerships with custodians like Ledger and Fireblocks. That visibility builds confidence.
Our advantage is that we’ve already built much of that bridge. While others are still designing blueprints, Nexo’s infrastructure operates today across 150+ jurisdictions—ready for the next phase of finance.
Crowdfund Insider: The term “banking” applies broadly, but in your title “Chief Banking Officer” at a digital-assets platform, what exactly is your scope of accountability?
For example: Are you responsible for bank-licensing, fiat relationships, in-house banking infrastructure, or more “payments rails + crypto integration”?
Lorenzo Pellegrino: My mandate is clear: to strengthen and expand our banking and payments infrastructure. That means deepening existing partnerships with financial institutions, identifying new opportunities, and leveraging features developed on their side. My role is to evolve how value moves globally, connecting liquidity, payments, and digital assets under one operational framework.
A big part of this is the development and expansion of the Nexo Card program, which lets clients switch between Credit and Debit Modes to either spend against their crypto collateral or use their available balance directly. The Nexo Card is live across the EU, with plans to expand its reach to new regions as we continue to build out our global payments network.
When you expand banking / payments infrastructure globally, how do you reconcile the need for speed, scale and low cost with divergent regulatory regimes, AML/KYC expectations, and local banking partner risk?
Lorenzo Pellegrino: At Nexo, market expansion is driven by two key factors: opportunities presented by potential clients and, most importantly, favorable regulatory developments. Advanced payments infrastructure is just one aspect of our broader market entry approach. Our team takes a holistic view, aligning efforts across Legal, Compliance, Product, and Marketing to establish a clear go-to-market strategy and deliver solutions that cater to—and hopefully even exceed—local needs and expectations.
Crowdfund Insider: One of the more interesting challenges in the crypto-asset ecosystem is the “rail-arbitrage” between fiat-based banking systems and crypto/networks (e.g., differing settlement speeds, custodial vs non-custodial models, regulatory uncertainty).
How will you position Nexo such that it is not just “another fintech scaling global rails” but is truly differentiating because of its hybrid model (crypto + banking)?
Lorenzo Pellegrino: We design and deliver products and services driven by our customers’ needs—this is the cornerstone of our success. We don’t build products based on assumptions, but on real user demand and feedback. Nexo’s ecosystem connects every stage of wealth–earning, borrowing, spending, and trading–all within one environment. Each product complements the next.
That coherence is what makes us different. We’re not chasing features; we’re creating continuity. Clients can earn interest, access a crypto-backed Credit Line, or spend with the Nexo Card without leaving the platform. It’s digital assets in motion—flexible, connected, and user-led.
That’s why clients increasingly see Nexo as their primary wealth operating system, a single environment where digital assets, credit, and payments work in sync.
Crowdfund Insider: For users and institutional clients , the promise is that their crypto holdings become more usable in real life (spending, borrowing, cross-border transfers).
What are some of the specific product shifts you expect to deliver in the next 12–18 months?
Lorenzo Pellegrino: What excites me most is giving people the freedom to use their digital assets in the real world. We don’t want clients to feel like they’re locked inside an app—we want them to carry that experience with them, in their pocket, every day, making it a part of their lives whether it’s to grab a coffee using the Nexo Card, or to get a mortgage and buy their first home, it’s all possible in the Nexo app.
To reinforce this vision, we’re significantly expanding the Nexo Card. We’re also broadening access to personal accounts through our banking partners, enabling clients to handle every aspect of their wealth from one place, with no need to move between systems. It’s really all about making digital assets genuinely useful—not theoretical, but practical, anywhere and anytime.
We’re also expanding cross-border payments and on-/off-ramps to make moving between fiat and digital currencies faster and more transparent. As markets mature, tokenized real-world assets will play a bigger role, and we’re preparing the infrastructure for that integration.
Crowdfund Insider: A skeptic might ask: Many crypto-platforms promise real-world payments, cards, banking features—but regulatory setbacks, partner exits, or banking-partner failures often derail those ambitions.
How will you, as CBO, ensure that Nexo’s banking/rail infrastructure is resilient to those risks?
Do you have specific partner-diversification strategies, contingency plans, or regulatory “shock-absorbers” you’re implementing?
Lorenzo Pellegrino: We are confident in our structure because it’s built on transparency and long-term relationships. Our close collaboration with partners ensures that we are well-informed and prepared for any upcoming changes that could impact our customers’ activities.
Furthermore, our compliance and risk teams monitor counterparties and market shifts daily so we can adapt before challenges emerge. We maintain detailed contingency plans to ensure uninterrupted service. The lesson from recent years is clear: resilience isn’t built in crisis, it’s engineered long before it. That’s why transparency and preparation remain our main competitive edges.
Crowdfund Insider: From a branding and positioning perspective; you are stepping into a role that straddles regulations, payments, crypto-assets, and global finance.
How will you communicate this internally at Nexo, and externally to retail customers, institutional clients, and regulators in a way that builds trust?
Lorenzo Pellegrino: At Nexo, banking strategy is an ongoing topic of discussion at the management level, where we actively exchange insights and explore new opportunities. At the same time, we maintain transparent communication with our clients — both retail and institutional — by openly sharing updates on upcoming changes, new products, and features through a comprehensive marketing and communications plan.
We engage with our customers daily, both through our digital channels and our dedicated account management team, ensuring a close and continuous dialogue. In an industry often defined by noise, clarity is our ultimate advantage.
Crowdfund Insider: Given your background scaling payments in emerging markets, do you see Nexo’s next phase growth being more in developed finance-markets or in underserved/“frontier” markets?
Lorenzo Pellegrino: It’s both. In mature markets, institutional adoption and regulatory clarity are accelerating, paving the way for a stable and clear environment in which to establish and expand our products. In emerging markets, digital assets already serve as everyday tools for saving and transacting, which, in turn, provides a large addressable market for Nexo.
However, this necessitates more attention as the regulatory clarity and environment in these jurisdictions are still being shaped. Either way, we are up for the challenge.
We already operate in over 150 markets; our ambition is to become a truly global service, with no limits to our growth. We see huge potential in places where traditional finance doesn’t reach everyone. Our Payments Gateway and localized onboarding help make those markets part of the same global conversation on digital wealth. What’s happening in these regions is transformation. Digital assets are filling real gaps in access and trust, and Nexo’s infrastructure helps make that shift safe and sustainable.
Crowdfund Insider: What is your personal vision for how “banking” will evolve in the next five years in a world where digital assets are no longer fringe?
Lorenzo Pellegrino: Banking, as we know it, is already changing. It’s only a matter of time before every major business — including top-tier banks — operates on blockchain and treats crypto assets with the same confidence as fiat currencies. However, traditional financial institutions are still building the expertise and infrastructure that Nexo has been refining for years.
This positions us as a natural partner to support them in developing their platforms, unlocking new opportunities, and fostering deeper, long-term relationships.
Personally, I see a future where people control their assets instantly, safely, and on their own terms. My goal is for Nexo to remain the partner that makes that transition seamless, powering a system that’s more open, connected, and human.