Visa Stablecoin Platform Reaches 200M Merchants
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- Visa launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform, an internal system letting banks and fintechs handle stablecoins within existing Visa payment and treasury workflows, with global head of growth Rubail Birwadker framing it as interoperability with treasury and money-movement setups rather than standalone crypto access.
- The platform reaches Visa's network of approximately 15,000 financial institutions and more than 200 million merchants; Visa already processes several billion dollars in stablecoin settlements annually against a broader $15 trillion payments base.
- OUSD, a stablecoin announced two weeks ago by the Open Standard consortium, will serve as the strategic starting point, complementing Visa's existing support for Circle's USDC and Paxos' USDG.
- Visa became the first payments network to settle transactions in USDC in March 2020 and rolled out a stablecoin settlement program in December, with the new platform positioned as an umbrella for those existing services.
- Mastercard has also partnered with Open Standard on OUSD and last month began letting banks and payments firms settle card transactions in stablecoins, starting with six regulated dollar-backed assets, while also teaming with MoonPay and joining Paxos' Global Dollar network.
- American Express has likewise partnered with Open Standard around the OUSD launch, with Birwadker saying Visa must 'hide the technical complexity' so clients focus solely on the payment experience.
Why it matters: Visa's 200 million merchants now get a single on-ramp to stablecoin settlement via a platform already processing billions in stablecoin volume and $15 trillion in total annual payments. By anchoring the launch on the new Open Standard OUSD while keeping USDC and USDG in the mix, Visa positions itself as the integration layer rather than backing one stablecoin winner — a playbook Mastercard and American Express are already mirroring through their own Open Standard partnerships.
