Visa Tests Stablecoins to Speed up Global Payments

The credit card giant is testing stablecoins in a pilot program so businesses can pay across borders faster and without having to hold cash in many local bank accounts.

Mohammedia – Visa is leaning into stablecoins, digital tokens backed by real money or assets, to facilitate faster and simpler international payments.

The company has initiated a pilot under its “Visa Direct” service, which enables banks, remitters, and other financial institutions to pre-fund cross-border payouts with stablecoins instead of depositing fiat currency into bank accounts worldwide.

Traditionally, firms sending money to many countries must keep cash in each country’s local bank, which ties up working capital and slows things down.

Visa’s new approach aims to cut out some of the friction by letting stablecoins stand in as a kind of bridge asset, holding value until the payout is made in the recipient’s local currency.

One big push behind this move is clearer regulation in the United States. A law called the Genius Act has recently set rules for stablecoin issuers.

That gives companies like Visa more confidence to build products around stablecoins, since regulatory uncertainty has been a major roadblock until now.

Visa is also expanding which stablecoins and blockchains it supports. It now works with a mix of USD-based stablecoins (like USDC), euro-based stablecoins (such as EURC), and has added chains like Solana, Stellar, Ethereum, and Avalanche for settlement.

The pilot is limited now to some partners, but Visa plans to widen it in 2026. Experts think this signals a shift as stablecoins are moving from being crypto “side projects” to becoming real infrastructure for how money moves globally.

However, risks are still present. The assets backing stablecoins have to be safe, liquid, and transparent. There are concerns about how stablecoins will be regulated, how secure their digital infrastructure is, and what happens if blockchain systems fail or are attacked.

Visa’s bet is that stablecoins can reduce cost, speed up payment times, and make it easier for businesses to move money internationally without locking cash in many places.