Visa and Mastercard expand stablecoin payments

Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., two of the world’s largest payments networks, have announced initiatives to bring stablecoins into the mainstream of money movement. Visa’s Visa Direct faster-payments platform is launching a commercial service that will incorporate stablecoins, while Mastercard’s Global Money Platform will combine the card network’s payments technology with stablecoin expertise from its BVNK unit.

Visa has partnered with Inyo Global, a company that offers technology bringing cards, cross-border transfers, and stablecoin capability into a single application programming interface. This partnership allows businesses to sign up users, accept payments, control fraud, and send domestic and international payouts to over 180 countries through Visa Direct.

The goal at Visa is to stimulate stablecoin adoption, particularly for cross-border transfers, which can be costly on traditional networks. Vira Platonova, global head of Visa Direct, says the next chapter for stablecoins is adoption, and the company is seeing efforts translate into live implementations, helping businesses access more flexible and efficient ways to fund and move money globally.

Robson Dantas, chief product and technology officer at Inyo Global, says the venture with Visa will give the company’s clients a new way to fund their payouts, available around the clock. Visa sees the new venture as a reflection of mounting demand for stablecoin-based processing as a way to manage money movement cross-border at greater speed.

Mastercard’s Global Money Platform represents the network’s first major integration with BVNK and its stablecoin capabilities. Initial users include Nuvei, Marqeta, Ontop, Beem, and Almond Fintech. The platform will allow users to spend stablecoins at Mastercard-accepting merchants globally, which number in the hundreds of millions.

Phil Fayer, chairman and chief executive of Nuvei, states that the future of global commerce depends on money moving as freely as the businesses and consumers it serves, across borders, currencies, and increasingly, between traditional and digital forms of money. He notes that stablecoins are becoming an increasingly important part of that future.

Program Launch Timing and Acquisition Details

The two announcements were made early Thursday, outlining new programs aimed at expanding stablecoin use in payments across multiple markets.

Visa has not released pricing information for the stablecoin service at this stage for businesses, leaving cost expectations unclear. The announcement noted that cost details were not immediately available. Both firms framed the initiatives as steps toward moving stablecoins further into the mainstream of money movement.