Stablecoins have moved from crypto-native experiments to a core building block for modern money movement. Visa’s latest pilot, which allows select partners to settle and pre-fund cross-border flows with USDC stablecoin instead of traditional currency balances, is a watershed moment for global treasury teams. It promises faster funding windows, lower capital lock-ups, and programmable payouts that mesh with real-time commerce. While this initiative builds on Visa’s earlier USDC work, the focus now squarely targets global business payments, where every hour and every basis point of working capital matters. Announced around the Sibos conference and delivered through Visa Direct, the program tests how stablecoins can streamline the pipes of international value transfer without forcing businesses to rewire the front end of their payment operation.
This article explains what Visa is piloting, why USDC settlement is different from conventional correspondent banking, how it fits into Visa’s broader multi-year playbook, and what it means for CFOs, payment processors, and fintechs that move money across borders.
What Exactly Is Visa Piloting With USDC?
Visa’s new pilot lets participating institutions use stablecoin pre-funding as a source of liquidity for Visa Direct cross-border payouts. Instead of parking large sums in multiple currencies and jurisdictions to cover transfers, a bank or remittance provider can pre-fund in USDC (and in some cases EURC) and draw down balances as payments are triggered. The goal is to reduce idle float, accelerate delivery outside banking hours, and simplify treasury operations that today sprawl across time zones and nostro accounts. This isn’t a consumer crypto card stunt—it is a measured test of on-chain settlement rails underneath familiar Visa experiences.
The approach is additive, not disruptive. Existing onboarding, AML/KYC, reporting, and reconciliation remain in place; the novelty is where the settlement liquidity sits and how quickly it can be mobilised. By allowing USDC stablecoin to play the role of pre-funded working capital, Visa is probing a future in which much of the slowest, most capital-intensive back-end plumbing becomes software-defined and near-instant.
How We Got Here: From a Single Issuer Pilot to Multi-Rail Settlement
Visa didn’t arrive at this point overnight. Back in 2021, the company ran its first USDC settlement pilot with Crypto.com, using Anchorage as the digital asset bank to receive USDC for a portion of issuer obligations. That test proved Visa could accept a stablecoin on public infrastructure and net it cleanly into its settlement workflows.
In 2023, Visa expanded stablecoin settlement capabilities by adding the Solana blockchain and piloting with merchant acquirers Worldpay and Nuvei. That step was important for two reasons: it diversified beyond Ethereum’s settlement layer and pushed stablecoin usage deeper into the acquiring side of the network, closer to merchants and payout endpoints.
Fast forward to 2025, and Visa has signalled plans to support more stablecoins, more chains, and more use cases, including support for EURC and additional USD-backed stablecoins. The trajectory is clear: broaden the asset set and the transport rails so that settlement liquidity can flow wherever counterparties need it, with the same trust envelope that enterprise clients expect from Visa.
Why USDC Stablecoin Matters for Cross-Border Business Payments
Less Capital Trapped in Nostros
Traditional cross-border payment flows often require pre-positioning cash across a patchwork of accounts. With USDC pre-funding, treasurers can hold a unified, programmable pool that supports multi-currency payouts without scattering balances across banks and corridors. Because stablecoin settlement can move 24/7/365, top-ups can happen closer to real time, reducing buffers and freeing working capital.
Faster Settlement Windows
Conventional settlement is gated by cut-off times, holidays, and batch windows. On-chain settlement executes whenever the network is live, enabling near-instant payouts even outside banking hours. That tightens cash conversion cycles for marketplaces, payroll providers, and B2B platforms whose users expect funds “now,” not “next Monday.”
Programmability and Auditability
USDC tokenised money that lives on programmable rails. Payment triggers, escrow logic, and conditional releases can be codified, giving finance teams a more controllable settlement fabric. On-chain records also create an indelible audit trail that can complement traditional reconciliation, improving transparency without sacrificing compliance.
Interoperability With Existing Rails
Crucially, Visa is integrating stablecoins into its existing settlement backbone and Visa Direct—not replacing it. That encourages adoption by letting participants keep their current ISO 20022 messaging, reporting, and risk controls while gaining a new, faster funding source. Visa’s public stance frames this as a bridge between digital assets and the mainstream payment ecosystem.
Inside the Pilot: How Liquidity, Risk, and Compliance Fit Together
Liquidity Management
Participants maintain USDC balances with an approved custodian or within a Circle Account workflow, where applicable. Treasury teams can automate top-ups when balances fall below thresholds, and convert back into fiat as needed for local disbursements. Because USDC settlement can be multi-chain, liquidity can route over Ethereum for deep pools or Solana for high throughput, depending on operational preferences established in earlier pilots. Visa
Risk and Volatility
Though USDC is designed to hold a $1 peg, sound policy treats stablecoin balances like any other treasury asset with concentration and counterparty limits. Visa’s approach—extending stablecoin support within its settlement framework—acknowledges these risks by embedding counterparty due diligence, collateral standards, and conversion paths back to fiat if extraordinary events require rapid de-risking. The fact that support is expanding to regulated, fiat-backed stablecoins like EURC suggests a focus on high-assurance instruments used by institutions.
Compliance, Reporting, and Controls
Stablecoin flows must satisfy the same sanctions screening, transaction monitoring, and beneficiary checks as fiat wires. Visa’s pilot keeps these controls intact and layers in on-chain analytics, so investigatory tooling can observe wallet movements and counterparties in a way batch settlement could not. The result is a compliance posture that is different in mechanics, not in rigour.
The Strategic Bet: Why Visa Is Doing This Now
Stablecoins are no longer niche. They’ve become the most widely used on-chain payment instruments, with adoption spreading from crypto exchanges to neobanks, merchant acquirers, and global payroll. Visa’s own perspective is that the industry is heading toward a world where every institution will need a stablecoin strategy, and where networks that handle settlement at scale must accommodate tokenised liquidity.
The pilot also aligns with broader regulatory clarity for fiat-backed stablecoins and growing enterprise comfort with digital asset infrastructure. By moving USDC settlement from a single-issuer proof-point to a multi-partner, multi-rail reality, Visa is positioning its network as the trusted bridge between open blockchain value and the traditional payments stack.
What It Means for Different Players
For Banks and Remittance Providers
Banks that manage cross-border payouts can swap idle balances for USDC pre-funding, cut cut-off time risk, and improve FX execution by converting closer to the moment of payout. Remittance providers can shorten the time from send to spend, improving customer satisfaction and reducing inbound support.
For Merchant Acquirers and Marketplaces
Acquirers like those in Visa’s earlier pilots benefit from smoother merchant settlements, especially over weekends and holidays. Marketplaces can pay sellers in hours rather than days, feed funds into embedded finance tools, and offer on-demand withdrawals without tying up large fiat buffers.
For Fintechs and Payout Platforms
Fintechs can build programmable payout logic that triggers from events: a ride completes, a task is verified, a loan is approved. The settlement layer can respond instantly, and funds can be pushed to bank accounts, cards, or wallets using Visa Direct endpoints that the market already understands.
For Corporate Treasurers
Treasurers gain a new lever in their working capital toolkit. With USDC stablecoin as a treasury asset, they can compress funding cycles, run lighter buffers, and automate reconciliation using on-chain proofs. Over time, expect tighter integration with ERP systems, rule-based sweep policies, and dashboards that track tokenised balances alongside traditional cash.
How Visa’s USDC Settlement Compares to Traditional Wires
Speed and Availability
Wires batch and clear through correspondent networks that close overnight and on weekends. USDC settlement moves whenever the chain moves. The contrast is most stark for cross-border emergencies and end-of-quarter crunches where speed and certainty matter.
Cost Structure
While exact costs depend on corridors and volumes, stablecoin settlement avoids many intermediary fees and can reduce FX slippage by converting at the edge. Networks like Solana also make the marginal cost of moving value negligible relative to wire fees for many ticket sizes. Visa’s 2023 expansion to Solana is explicitly scoped for high-throughput settlement, a nod to cost and performance.
Transparency
On-chain transfers are visible and time-stamped, which simplifies post-trade reconciliation and shortens investigations. The paper trail becomes a block explorer, not a ticket email thread.
The Multi-Chain, Multi-Stablecoin Road Ahead
Visa has indicated a path to support additional USD-backed stablecoins, new blockchains, and euro-denominated settlement via EURC. Expect pilots to broaden both geographically and functionally, with new endpoints and payout types. As coverage expands, interoperability—how balances traverse chains and how fiat on/off-ramps coordinate—will be the next big optimisation frontier.
In parallel, Visa is working with partners to make stablecoins usable in everyday contexts, including stablecoin-linked cards and embedded experiences that abstract the complexity away from end users. The essence of the strategy: keep the user experience familiar while making the back-end rails faster, more programmable, and globally consistent. Visa
Practical Considerations Before You Join a Pilot
Governance and Counterparties
Choose regulated custodians and keep a written risk framework for stablecoin exposure: caps per issuer, per chain, and per venue. Make sure counterparties can honour redemptions and that you have emergency unwind procedures.
Accounting and Policy
Work with auditors to define the classification of USDC holdings and to document control procedures for mint, burn, and transfer events. Many treasurers treat stablecoins like near-cash equivalents but record them with dedicated sub-ledgers for clarity.
Technical Readiness
Map wallets to business processes. Build alerting for balances, settlement confirmations, and exception handling. Integrate on-chain data into reconciliation so finance teams can match token movements to payout instructions without manual hopping.
Regulatory Posture
Even in friendly regimes, cross-border usage invokes sanctions and licensing questions. Maintain a compliance matrix per corridor, and leverage analytics tooling to screen wallets and flows.
Beyond Hype: Why This Pilot Feels Durable
What distinguishes this moment isn’t marketing—it’s fit. The USDC settlement pilot targets a real pain point: the cost and complexity of global cross-border payments and the working capital trapped to support them. By deploying stablecoins underneath the surface, Visa preserves the network trust and ubiquity that businesses rely on, while absorbing the speed and programmability of public blockchains. That’s not a crypto detour; it’s the logical next step in the evolution of settlement.
Conclusion
Visa’s USDC stablecoin settlement pilot is a pragmatic bridge between the speed of public blockchains and the reliability of enterprise payments. It builds on earlier experiments with USDC issuers and acquirers, extends into Visa Direct to unlock liquidity and faster payouts, and sketches a road map that spans Ethereum, Solana, USD- and euro-denominated stablecoins, and more partners worldwide. For treasurers, acquirers, remitters, and marketplaces, the message is clear: tokenised settlement is here, and it can make your cross-border money movement faster, leaner, and easier to control. The institutions that learn to hold and deploy stablecoin liquidity—safely and compliantly—will be the first to convert the promise of on-chain settlement into measurable P&L gains.
FAQs
Q: Is Visa’s USDC pilot available to every business today?
Not yet. The program is limited to select partners that meet criteria for risk, compliance, and operational readiness, with broader expansion planned after the pilot phase. Visa announced the initiative and its scope around Sibos 2025, emphasising a staged rollout through Visa Direct.
Q: How is this different from Visa’s earlier crypto card experiments?
Earlier efforts focused on letting crypto card issuers settle a slice of obligations in USDC; today’s pilot addresses cross-border business payments and pre-funding for real-time payouts. It is about the back-end liquidity that powers global disbursements, not consumer spending at the point of sale.
Q: Which blockchains and stablecoins are involved?
Visa’s stablecoin settlement capabilities started on Ethereum and expanded to Solana in 2023 with pilots involving Worldpay and Nuvei. In 2025, Visa outlined plans to support additional USD-backed stablecoins, more blockchains, and EURC for euro-denominated settlement. Exact assets in any given pilot depend on partner readiness and corridor needs.
Q: What are the main benefits for treasury teams?
Key gains include faster settlement windows, less capital trapped in pre-positioned accounts, and programmable payout logic with an immutable audit trail. Because it plugs into Visa Direct, teams can modernise liquidity without ripping out existing controls. Visa describes its role as building a trusted bridge between stablecoin-native players and global networks.
Q: Does using USDC compromise compliance or increase risk?
No. The pilot is designed to meet the same compliance thresholds as fiat settlement, with added visibility from on-chain analytics. Institutions still handle KYC/AML, sanctions screening, and reporting, while benefiting from faster, more transparent settlement rails. The assets involved are fiat-backed stablecoins with clear redemption frameworks and enterprise-grade custody options
Read more: Surge in Stablecoin Market Signals Potential Bitcoin Rally
