Visa to add support for four new stablecoins as demand rise

Visa will add support for four new stablecoins on its settlement platform after the payments giant witnessed a spike in demand for stablecoin-linked card services. Summary Visa will add support for four new stablecoins across four different blockchains as part of its expanded settlement platform. The company reported a fourfold rise in stablecoin-linked card spending over the last quarter. Visa has launched a stablecoin pilot to enable banks to pre-fund cross-border payments. During the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, CEO Ryan McInerney told investors that Visa plans to double down on its stablecoin offerings as it reported a fourfold increase in stablecoin-linked Visa card spend over the last quarter compared to a year ago. “We are adding support for four stablecoins, running on four unique blockchains, representing two currencies, that we can accept and convert to over 25 traditional fiat currencies,”  McInerney said. No other details regarding the specific stablecoins or the blockchains they will operate on were disclosed. Visa has reported $10.72 billion in revenue and earnings of $2.98 per share this quarter, narrowly beating Wall Street expectations. Even as its core business continues to deliver steady results, the firm has long shown keen interest in stablecoins that have become an increasingly important settlement rail within the payments market. According to a report from American venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz released earlier this month, stablecoins processed roughly $46 trillion in transactions over the past year alone, and managed to surpass Visa’s numbers over the same period. Visa itself has facilitated nearly $140 billion worth of crypto and stablecoin flows since 2020, as highlighted by McInerney during the earnings call. At present, Visa already supports major stablecoins like USD Coin (USDC), Euro Coin (EURC), PayPal USD (PYUSD), and Global Dollar (USDG), and has partnered with several crypto-native firms over the years to expand settlement options and improve its cross-border payment capabilities. “We expanded the number of stablecoins and blockchains available for settlement, and monthly volume has now passed a $2.5 billion annualized run rate,” McInerney added. Regarding future plans, McInerney said Visa will continue to broaden its stablecoin services for banks and financial institutions while focusing on building more features within its solution layer. Specifically, the company will focus on tokenization infrastructure that will allow banks to “mint and burn their own stablecoins” using the Visa tokenized asset platform, while also integrating new capabilities to improve “cross-border money movement through Visa Direct,” using stablecoins. Visa has launched a stablecoin pilot Last month, Visa unveiled its stablecoin prefunding pilot under Visa Direct, which allows banks and financial institutions to use stablecoins as a funding source for global payouts. giving them faster access to liquidity without locking capital in multiple currencies. Visa may also be eyeing stablecoins’ role within the decentralized lending market, as evidenced by a separate report it published earlier this month. In the report, it noted that on-chain lending with stablecoins has originated over $670 billion in loans since 2020, and said it plans to support this market by providing the technology and infrastructure that banks and institutions need to enter programmable lending.