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TOKYO, Japan – November 3, 2026 – Digital payments platform O2Pay has received the Corporate Innovation Excellence Award at the 3rd Global Business Excellence Award (GBEA) ceremony, held on November 1, 2026 at The Prince Park Tower Tokyo. David Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of O2Pay, attended in person and took the stage to accept the award.

O2Pay Co-Founder and CEO David Smith (center) accepts the award on stage at the GBEA 2026 ceremony

It was David’s first time in Japan. His very first stop: the stage of an international business awards ceremony.

1. The Moment Under the Spotlight

In early November, night falls early over Tokyo Tower. In the ballroom of The Prince Park Tower Tokyo, at the foot of the tower, a red carpet ran from the entrance all the way to the stage, and the flags of nations across Asia lined the backdrop. The 3rd Global Business Excellence Award shared the evening with the launch party for the book WOMAN Serendipity VI and the 3rd International Women Entrepreneurs Business Model Competition, bringing together figures from Japanese politics and business alongside company representatives from across Asia.

When O2Pay was announced, the giant screen lit up with the words “Corporate Innovation Excellence Award.” Beneath them appeared the winner, O2Pay, and a name written in Japanese: 「デビッド・スミス様」 (his name in Japanese). Under the spotlight, David walked the red carpet, climbed the steps and received the certificate from a representative of the organizers.

David walks the red carpet as the big screen displays “Corporate Innovation Excellence Award” and 「デビッド・スミス様」

For many of the Japanese guests in the room, it may well have been the first time they had heard of O2Pay. So why was a technology-driven payments company standing on an awards stage in Tokyo? The answer starts with a problem older than anyone in the room: how money crosses borders.

2. An Old Problem, a New Answer

Cross-border payments are almost as old as international trade itself, yet they remain one of the slowest-moving parts of global commerce. Even today, an international transfer often passes through several intermediary banks, changing hands at each step and taking days to arrive. Every hop adds another layer of fees and currency spread, and businesses and users ultimately foot the bill. For smaller payment operators, the challenges multiply: every new country means integrating a fresh set of local payment habits and channels, a slow and costly exercise. And for every day money spends in transit, a business has to set aside more working capital.

That is starting to change. Over the past few years, the role of stablecoins has quietly shifted. No longer just a trading instrument within digital asset markets, they are increasingly being used in real-world commerce: cross-border remittances, merchant collections and corporate settlement. Several of the world’s major economies have also introduced regulatory frameworks for stablecoins, giving the technology clearer rules to operate under. And as the rules become clearer, what the market needs is no longer concepts but infrastructure that actually works.

O2Pay was built for this moment. Designed for real-world payment operators, the platform supports more than 170 payment methods, connects fiat currencies and digital assets through more than 30 global on- and off-ramp channels, and completes settlement instantly in stablecoins, with operations spanning nine markets across the Asia-Pacific. For businesses, plugging into O2Pay means no longer having to find a separate way into every market, and no longer waiting days for funds to arrive.

Picture an e-commerce platform serving shoppers in several Southeast Asian countries. In the past, it had to integrate local payment methods country by country, then wait as funds trickled back through layer after layer. With O2Pay, it can connect to multiple payment methods in one go and settle instantly in stablecoins, turning money that used to be stuck in transit back into working capital it can put to use right away. The same logic applies to payment operators looking to expand into new countries, and to companies that need to pay suppliers overseas.

Underpinning all of this is O2Ramp, the liquidity infrastructure built in-house by the O2 ecosystem. Think of it as an invisible dispatch center. The liquidity layer pools stablecoin liquidity; the trading desk aggregates real-time quotes and finds the right route for every order; the AI auto-allocation engine directs liquidity in real time to the most efficient trading pairs; and finally the settlement layer handles delivery and distribution, keeping every flow of funds clear and traceable. O2Ramp serves not only O2Pay but also powers other ecosystem products such as O2DEX and O2 Card. From the liquidity foundation to the payment gateway to card-based applications, what O2 has built is not a single-point tool but a fully interconnected system.

That is exactly what the judges saw in Tokyo.

3. What the Judges Saw

The GBEA is jointly organized by Malaysia’s Asia Excellence Entrepreneur Federation (AEEF) and Japan’s Asia Business Trust Inc. (株式会社アジアビジネストラスト). AEEF has member organizations in 60 countries and enters its 15th year in 2026. Together, the two organizations bring outstanding companies from Malaysia and across Asia to Tokyo to be assessed by the international business community. This year’s ceremony was held under the theme “Innovation × Impact × Integrity,” with judging built around five criteria: innovation, feasibility, scalability, social impact and leadership.

Those five criteria read almost like an exam written for O2Pay. On innovation, it replaces the chain of intermediaries with stablecoins, taking cross-border settlement from “measured in days” to “arrives instantly.” But judges are not won over by innovation that stays at the concept stage, and what O2Pay brought to the table was a system already up and running: more than 170 payment methods, more than 30 on- and off-ramp channels and coverage of nine markets. That answers the question of feasibility. More importantly, the system grows stronger the more it is used. With O2Ramp as the foundation, every new market and every new channel benefits O2Pay, O2DEX and O2 Card alike. That is scalability. By making instant, low-barrier cross-border payments more accessible to small and mid-sized payment operators and businesses, it lowers the barriers to global commerce. That is its impact.

As for the fifth criterion, leadership, the answer lies not in the product but on the road.

4. A Year on the Road, a Team Behind It

The award in Tokyo was earned step by step over the course of the year.

In June, O2 hosted a Japan market briefing in Tokyo. That same month, David led a public Q&A on Binance Live, answering questions from the global community about the product, liquidity participation and the development roadmap. O2 then attended the 6th Digital Trade Innovation & Application Summit in Macau, and as a sponsor ran a three-day booth at Philippine Blockchain Week in Manila, where David also spoke on the main stage. In July, O2 returned to Tokyo as an exhibitor at WebX 2026 at the Tokyo International Forum, before heading to Kuala Lumpur at the end of the month for MBW 2026. In August, O2 held Soft Launching 2026 in Pattaya, Thailand. And in November, on his first trip to Japan in person, David stepped onto the awards stage in Tokyo.

From Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines to Macau and Japan, O2 spent a year covering the Asia-Pacific’s key markets. Wherever it went, the team brought the product directly to local partners and users, explaining face to face what O2 does and why it does it that way. This approach of showing up and explaining clearly is exactly how the O2 brand has built trust along the way.

The certificate bears O2Pay’s name, but behind the honor stands an entire team: engineers refining the payment products and the AI liquidity engine day after day; compliance and operations colleagues safeguarding every process; and marketing and community teams carrying O2 to one country after another, one event after another. And there are the partners, shareholders and community members who chose to believe in O2 from its earliest days and have grown alongside it ever since.

“To take the stage at an international ceremony in Tokyo on my very first visit to Japan is a great honor,” David said. “This award recognizes the direction of innovation O2Pay has taken, but it truly belongs to every team member who has worked alongside us, to the partners and shareholders who have supported us along the way, and to every user who places their trust in O2Pay.”

5. Trust, Built One Step at a Time

For a payments company, trust is the most important asset there is, and the hardest to build quickly. It does not come from a slogan; it accumulates slowly, through one verifiable detail after another.

On the technology side, the O2 ecosystem’s smart contracts have been independently audited by three blockchain security firms: CertiK, SolidProof and Beosin. On fund management, O2Ramp keeps client funds separate from operating funds and uses institutional-grade custody at major exchanges. This is trust written into the system.

The award in Tokyo adds another piece to the puzzle: with its technology already standing up to scrutiny, the company’s capacity for innovation and its strategic direction have now also been recognized by the international business community. For clients, it is one more reference point when choosing a payments partner. For partners, standing alongside an internationally recognized company makes their own brands more compelling. For shareholders and investors, it is an external review that strengthens confidence in the team’s execution and in O2Pay’s long-term development. And for the community that has backed O2 all along, they were the first to witness this honor, and they are the foundation from which O2 steps onto bigger stages.

Technical audits and an international award, one in the system and one on the stage, together form the two pillars of O2Pay’s brand credibility.

6. Onward from Tokyo

Let us return to that night in Tokyo.

Beyond the moment on the awards stage, the evening also brought O2Pay to the attention of Japan’s political and business circles. The ceremony gathered representatives from Japanese politics and business and from across Asia, with attending guests including Satsuki Katayama, Japan’s Minister of Finance and Minister of State for Financial Services. Over the course of the evening, David met and spoke with several distinguished Japanese guests: Atsushi Sakima, Mayor of Ginowan, Okinawa, who was born in Ginowan, first elected in 2012 and returned to the mayoralty in 2024; Haruko Arimura, a senior LDP member of the House of Councillors elected through the proportional representation (national) constituency; and Yasuyo Michibata, Representative Director of Asia Business Trust Inc., who represented the organizers and presented him with the award on stage.

From left: David with Ginowan Mayor Atsushi Sakima, House of Councillors member Haruko Arimura and organizer representative Yasuyo Michibata

Meeting face to face with national and local political figures and business leaders in Japan gave O2Pay the opportunity to present its vision directly, and to gain a deeper understanding of what the Japanese market expects from digital payments, cross-border commerce and regional cooperation.

Why Japan? Japan is one of the world’s largest economies and one of Asia’s most mature business cultures, with a deep emphasis on credibility and compliance. In 2023, Japan amended its Payment Services Act to establish a clear legal framework for stablecoins, making it one of the earlier major economies to set rules for them. For O2, Japan is both an important market and a benchmark for the brand: being recognized and trusted here signals that O2’s products and team are heading in the right direction.

“Japan has always been one of our most important markets,” David said. “Going forward, we will move faster and build even more solid products to bring reliable cross-border payment and liquidity channels to more businesses.”

Tokyo is only the beginning. On November 4, David will travel to Osaka for “O2 VISION & BEYOND | OSAKA 2026,” where he will personally share O2’s next steps with Japanese community leaders, including the new lines of business O2Ramp plans to develop beyond liquidity provision. The event will also feature an IPO advisor as a special guest, offering insights on capital markets. From the awards stage to community gatherings, from Tokyo to Osaka, O2’s next chapter in Japan is unfolding stop by stop: deepening ties with local communities, seeking more local partners, feeding experience gathered across the Asia-Pacific back into the product, and, as a recipient of the Corporate Innovation Excellence Award at GBEA in Tokyo, telling the O2 story at more international venues.

And the destination of that story has long been written into O2’s vision: “A world where money can move globally, freely, instantly and fairly, and where everyone has access.” From the first transaction and the first market to the awards stage beneath Tokyo Tower, O2 has kept moving in the same direction: making it as easy to move money around the world as it is to send a message.

About the Global Business Excellence Award (GBEA)

The Global Business Excellence Award is jointly organized in Tokyo by Malaysia’s Asia Excellence Entrepreneur Federation (AEEF) and Japan’s Asia Business Trust Inc. It honors outstanding entrepreneurs, companies, products and business leaders from Malaysia and across Asia, and helps award recipients expand into Japan and international markets. The 2026 edition was the 3rd, held under the theme “Innovation × Impact × Integrity.”

About O2Pay

O2Pay is a digital payments platform for real-world payment operators, offering more than 170 payment methods, instant stablecoin settlement and more than 30 global on- and off-ramp channels, with operations across nine markets in the Asia-Pacific. It is powered by O2Ramp’s liquidity infrastructure. Website: o2pay.money

About O2Ramp

O2Ramp is an AI-driven decentralized liquidity protocol that provides stablecoin liquidity to on- and off-ramp service providers bridging fiat currencies and digital assets worldwide, and serves as the liquidity infrastructure for O2 ecosystem products including O2Pay, O2DEX and O2 Card. Its smart contracts have been independently audited by CertiK, SolidProof and Beosin. Website: o2ramp.com

Media and Official Channels

X: x.com/O2Ramp / Instagram: instagram.com/o2ramp / YouTube: youtube.com/@o2_ramp / linktr.ee/o2ramp

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