Visa expands stablecoin settlement capabilities to merchant acquirers

finextra.com:

Through live pilots with issuers and acquirers, Visa has already moved millions of the USDC stablecoin between its partners over the Solana and Ethereum blockchain networks to settle fiat-denominated payments authorised over VisaNet.

“By leveraging stablecoins like USDC and global blockchain networks like Solana and Ethereum, we’re helping to improve the speed of cross-border settlement and providing a modern option for our clients to easily send or receive funds from Visa’s treasury,” says Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto, Visa.

The payments giant has been working with issuers on stablecoins since 2021 and is now looking into settlement options to send funds onchain to acquirers like Worldpay and Nuvei to help speed up settlement times for their merchants.

Using its own account with USDC outfit Circle, Visa can now manage settlement payouts in USDC to Worldpay and Nuvei who can then route these payments in USDC to their end merchants.

Meanwhile, Visa has added support for Solana as a high performance blockchain that its partners can choose to send or receive USDC settlement payments.

“Visa’s USDC settlement capability enables Worldpay to bring more of our treasury operations in-house and allows us to offer merchants more choices for receiving funds,” says Jim Johnson, president, Worldpay Merchant Solutions, FIS.