[NEW YORK] Visa is opening its US network to stablecoin settlement, expanding crypto-linked products and services enabled by the relaxed regulatory environment under the second Trump administration.
The global payments giant said on Tuesday (Dec 16) that it would allow US institutions to settle transactions using Circle Internet Group’s USDC token over the Solana blockchain. Cross River Bank and Lead Bank are among the first to use the service. Visa, a design partner for Circle’s Arc blockchain, will also support that network once it launches.
Visa has previously tested stablecoin settlement overseas, but this marks the first full deployment in the US banking system. In July, US President Donald Trump signed a federal framework for stablecoins, providing the regulatory clarity needed for domestic services using fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies, which are expected to offer faster and cheaper cross-border payments.
“There’s a new wave of demand coming from these fintech, crypto clients that are serving these new use cases, and for us, that demand is very big,” Luca Cosentino, head of crypto at Cross River Bank, said.
Fintech and crypto firms are increasingly turning to stablecoin-linked payment cards to help users spend stablecoin balances. Merchants are typically paid out in local currency. Cross River is launching the stablecoin settlement capability with payments platform Highnote.
The ability to settle card transactions in stablecoins could help banks win new business from upstart clients, according to Cosentino. Long term, stablecoins will become a critical rail, he added, making it a “no-brainer capability that will be increasingly adopted”.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a constant value, and like USDC, are often backed one-to-one by US dollar-denominated assets such as Treasuries.
Visa is now in a race with its main competitors to support a technology that could be disruptive to its role as a payments intermediary. Stablecoins could be used for more than US$50 trillion in annual payment flows by 2030, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Diksha Gera estimates.
Mastercard announced in April that it would allow merchants to receive stablecoin payments. In October, Fortune reported that Mastercard is in advanced talks to buy crypto infrastructure firm Zero Hash.
Traditional financial institutions have become more public about their stablecoin plans this year, as the Trump administration scaled back regulation and embraced the digital asset industry.
“This touches the core of our business, which is settling money into the Visa network,” Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s global head of growth, said. “Now we can expand it to the US because banks have the green light to use fully reserved digital dollars and regulated settlement flows.”
Earlier this year, Visa partnered with Stripe’s Bridge on a platform to help fintechs quickly spin up their own stablecoin-linked card programmes across multiple countries at once, starting in Latin America. Stablecoin demand tends to be concentrated in markets with volatile local currencies.
Part of the promise of stablecoins is faster settlements, which can take as long as three business days on Visa’s network using traditional payment rails. Blockchains allow for near-instant settlement, seven days a week.
As at Nov 30, Visa’s annualised stablecoin settlement volume topped US$3.5 billion, representing a fast-growing but relatively small business line compared with the US$17 trillion processed on the Visa network last year.
Visa is positioning itself as the go-to partner for finance firms’ stablecoin needs. This week, it launched a global stablecoin advisory practice for a variety of businesses, including banks, fintechs and merchants. It has also been promoting its tokenised asset platform to help financial institutions issue their own fiat-backed tokens. BLOOMBERG
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