Payment giant VISA “plays” with stablecoins

Global payments giant VISA has announced something big.

On September 5, according to Businesswire reports, following the joint pilot launch of "crypto debit card" and "crypto prepaid card" with Crypto.com, the global payment giant VISA is deciding to further pilot cooperation with merchant acquirers Worldpay and Nuvei. Expand the settlement capabilities of its blockchain network-based stablecoin USDC.

According to the official introduction, through pilot cooperation with issuing and acquiring institutions, VISA has transferred millions of USDC between its partners on the Solana and Ethereum blockchain networks.

When consumers use their VISA cards to make purchases at millions of VISA merchants around the world, they can experience the convenience of instant payments. But what consumers don't know is that these funds for spending need to move seamlessly between their deposit bank (the issuer) and the merchant bank (the acquirer). VISA's treasury and settlement systems clear, settle and transfer billions of transactions per day, ensuring that the exact preferred currency amount is received from the issuer and sent to the acquirer. This process has been seamlessly connected between nearly 15,000 financial institutions and more than 25 currencies around the world.

Cuy Sheffield, Head of Crypto at VISA, said, “By leveraging stablecoins like USDC and global blockchain networks like Solana and Ethereum, we are helping to increase cross-border settlement capabilities and provide a more modern option for our customers to It’s easy to send or receive funds from VISA Finance. VISA is committed to being at the forefront of innovation in digital currency and blockchain and leveraging these new technologies to improve the way we move money.”

As early as 2021, VISA began to test how to use USDC in its financial business and conducted a pilot cooperation on Crypto.com. This move made VISA one of the first important payment networks to test "stable currency settlement" in terms of issuance. one. This work leverages the USDC and Ethereum blockchain networks to receive payments from Crypto.com for real-time card cross-border transactions in Australia. Crypto.com now uses USDC to fulfill its settlement obligations on VISA cards in Australia, and intends to roll this out in other markets as well.

Prior to this pilot, settlement of cross-border purchases using the Crypto.com VISA card required several days of currency exchange and international wire transfers. Crypto.com can now send USDC cross-border settlements directly to Circle accounts managed by VISA Financial Services via the Ethereum blockchain, helping to reduce the time and complexity of international wire transfers.

Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said that VISA and its partners are driving the most basic blockchain innovation. Circle created and issued USDC to provide a functional digital dollar that can be transferred at Internet speeds as a safe and secure method of payment. This expanded pilot demonstrates the potential of how the innovative combination of USDC and VISA can unlock the future of payments, commerce and financial applications.

While VISA Financial Business continues to test on-chain funds received from multiple issuing partners, through these settlement options, VISA can send on-chain funds to acquirers such as Worldpay and Nuvei to help merchants improve settlement efficiency.

Worldpay and Nuvei serve merchants in various industries around the world. This includes the growing number of merchants interacting with the blockchain and crypto-economy, as well as portal providers, gaming and NFT markets, who may be more willing to accept stablecoin payments rather than traditional fiat currencies as payment methods. Through VISA's Circle account, VISA can now manage settlement payments in USDC to Worldpay and Nuvei, who can then send these payments in USDC to their end merchants.

As VISA expands this functionality to more customers, there is an urgent need to take advantage of newer, high-performance blockchains to send and receive stablecoins faster and at lower costs. For these reasons, VISA has chosen to add support for Solana as a high-performance blockchain where its partners can choose to send or receive USDC settlement payments. This makes VISA one of the first major payments companies to directly leverage Solana at scale for real-time settlement of payments between customers. The Solana blockchain has a block time of 400 milliseconds and processes an average of 400 transactions per second (TPS), with processing speeds often soaring to over 2,000 TPS for various use cases during peak demand periods.

As the financial industry becomes increasingly digital in the future, VISA is also promoting more new partnerships while embracing the innovative potential of digital currency. VISA's cooperation with Worldpay and Nuvei represents an important step in this direction.

Jim Johnson, President of Worldpay Merchant Solutions, said that VISA's USDC settlement capability enables Worldpay to incorporate more financial services into the company's internal processes and provide merchants with more payment options. In today's rapidly evolving business environment, diverse payment options and flexibility are critical to meeting the ever-changing needs of global merchants.

Nuvei Chairman and CEO Philip Fayer said that stablecoins like USDC are the most advanced payment technology and can help online businesses around the world accelerate their growth. Optimizing cross-border transactions is just one use case where stablecoins can benefit businesses. As the world's leading payments company, we remain focused on innovation, and we are excited to work with VISA to bring these capabilities to our partners.