Visa pilots stablecoin funding for Visa Direct
Visa announced a pilot that lets businesses fund Visa Direct with stablecoins to speed up cross‑border payouts. Instead of pre‑positioning idle fiat deposits, companies can use digital tokens pegged to national currencies. Visa will treat those balances as “on‑account funds” available for near‑instant disbursements.
Until now, companies have often kept large sums in transit for days to avoid delays on cross‑border payments. In the Visa Direct pilot, stablecoins act as the pre‑funding source: money becomes available to send almost right away, while recipients can still be paid out in their local currency. For banks, remittance providers, and other fintechs, this frees liquidity and makes treasury operations more flexible.
Visa says the goal is to move settlement times from “days to minutes” and to give businesses more choice in how and when they pay. Pilot partners aren’t disclosed, but the company confirms it is starting with Circle’s USDC and EURC. A limited rollout is targeted by April 2026.
Over the past few years, Visa has steadily integrated stablecoins into its stack, from early USDC settlement pilots to supporting more blockchains and tooling for issuers and acquirers. Running this experiment through Visa Direct is a logical next step, shifting the focus from cards and merchants to the payout plumbing.
At Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia + Technology Conference on September 9, 2025, Jack Forestell, Visa’s Chief Product & Strategy Officer, noted that Visa’s stablecoin settlement run‑rate reached roughly $1 billion: about 4× higher than earlier in the year. Direct stablecoin settlement gives partners a way to bypass traditional banking hours for 24/7 settlement. Today Visa accepts USDC, EURC, PYUSD, and USDG across four blockchains.
If the pilot performs as planned, businesses get a more predictable, programmable rail for cross‑border payouts. And Visa strengthens its role as a bridge between familiar payment infrastructure and on‑chain networks without changing the end‑recipient experience, while speeding up how money moves around the world.
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