- Visa launched a new platform to help banks and fintechs add stablecoins to everyday payment systems.
- The platform supports treasury, settlements, and money transfers using USDC, USDG, and the new OUSD stablecoin.
- Visa is expanding its stablecoin business as competition grows from payment and crypto companies.
Visa is expanding its push into stablecoins with a new platform designed to help banks, fintech companies, and merchants use digital dollars in everyday payments. The platform will make it easier for financial institutions to integrate stablecoins into existing payment systems, the company told Fortune, as interest in blockchain-based payments continues to grow.
Called the Visa Stablecoin Platform, the service is designed to support treasury management, transaction settlement, and money transfers. Visa said it processes billions of dollars in stablecoin settlements each year and expects the platform to help more of the roughly 15,000 financial institutions in its network adopt the technology.
Visa Targets Simpler Stablecoin Adoption
Visa said the platform will launch with Open USD (OUSD), a stablecoin introduced by the Open Standard consortium. The company said OUSD will join other supported stablecoins, including USDC and USDG.
Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s global head of growth, said the focus is not simply on adding stablecoins but on integrating them into existing payment systems. “It’s less about accessing stablecoins and more about how… this interoperate[s] with their treasury settlement, their money movement workflows, [and] their existing bank setups,” he told Fortune.
Stablecoins can settle transactions within minutes and often cost less to use than traditional cross-border payment systems. Because they run on blockchain networks, they also provide transparent transaction records, allowing businesses to move money more quickly and streamline payment operations.
Building on Years of Stablecoin Development
Visa has been expanding its stablecoin efforts for several years. In 2020, it became the first major payments network to settle transactions using USDC. The company built on that work by launching a stablecoin settlement program last year.
Birwadker said stablecoins are likely to become an important part of the financial system, but added that users should not have to understand the underlying blockchain technology. “We want to bring them along on this journey… and we’ve been doing that for the better part of half a decade,” he said.
Competition Intensifies Across Payments Industry
Visa faces growing competition in the stablecoin market from rivals including Mastercard and American Express. Both companies joined the Open Standard consortium around the launch of OUSD, while Mastercard has expanded its stablecoin settlement offerings through new partnerships and regulated dollar-backed digital assets.
The competition also includes technology and crypto companies. Open Standard counts Visa, BlackRock, Alphabet and Coinbase among its backers. Open Standard’s revenue-sharing model has positioned it as a challenger to Circle, whose USDC remains the largest regulated dollar-backed stablecoin used in payments.
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