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Key Takeaways
- Visa’s stablecoin settlement volume has surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, up 15 times year over year.
- More than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs now run on Visa’s network, with payment volume up nearly 200% year over year.
- A pilot with Credit Coop has supported more than $2.5 billion in cumulative financed settlement volume since 2023 with zero defaults, per Visa’s self-reported figures.
Visa said Tuesday it is combining its VisaNet settlement data with on-chain lending infrastructure to help stablecoin-linked card programs and fintechs secure working capital. The move targets a financing gap facing newer payment companies, which often struggle to access credit from traditional lenders that require scale, operating history or manual underwriting.
Visa disclosed the initiative alongside data showing its stablecoin settlement volume has surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, up 15 times year over year.
How The New Data-Sharing Model Works
The system gives lenders a clearer view of a payment card program’s settlement receivables, the money a program is owed once its transactions clear. With customer authorization, that settlement data can be combined with on-chain transaction records to assess credit performance and automate parts of settlement financing.
The approach addresses a structural problem in card-program financing. A card program’s revenue often depends on high transaction volume that clears through multiple parties before the operator actually receives payment, which can leave a timing gap between processing a purchase and collecting the funds behind it.
Lenders have historically needed extensive manual underwriting to bridge that gap, particularly for newer companies without a long operating history.
By combining VisaNet’s settlement records with blockchain transaction data, Visa said the model can give lenders real-time visibility into a program’s actual payment flows rather than relying only on historical financial statements.
Stablecoin Card Volume Has Surged
Visa said more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs now operate on its network, with payment volume up nearly 200% year over year.
That growth has outpaced the financing infrastructure historically available to the companies running those programs, according to Visa, since traditional lenders remain cautious about extending credit to newer entrants in a fast-growing but still-developing category.
The scale of that volume growth is part of why Visa is positioning the data-sharing model as a financing tool rather than simply a reporting feature.
Faster access to working capital could let stablecoin card issuers scale their programs without waiting on the kind of extended credit-history requirements that have limited financing options for newer payment companies in the past.
Credit Coop Pilot Provides The Proof Of Concept
Visa has already tested an early version of the model through a partnership with Credit Coop, a decentralized lending platform that uses smart contracts to automate funding, collateral management and repayment.
That structure lets loan terms execute automatically on-chain rather than requiring manual processing at each stage of a loan’s life cycle.
The pilot has supported more than $2.5 billion in cumulative financed settlement volume since 2023, with zero defaults across participating facilities, Visa said. The program has processed more than 3,000 borrow events and 9,000 repayment events programmatically on-chain.
Those figures are self-reported by Visa and its lending partner and have not been independently verified.
Part Of A Broader Stablecoin Settlement Push
Tuesday’s announcement follows a separate report two weeks earlier indicating Visa is seeking a new stablecoin settlement partner with licensing capabilities across several regions, as competition in stablecoin infrastructure intensifies.
Stablecoins, digital tokens pegged to the value of traditional financial assets such as fiat currencies, have become a strategic priority for major card networks and payment companies, including Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe.
The data-sharing and lending initiative extends that broader push beyond settlement infrastructure and into financing, giving Visa a role not just in moving stablecoin-linked payments but in helping fund the companies that process them.
Whether other lenders adopt the same data-sharing approach, or whether it remains centered on Visa’s existing partnership with Credit Coop, will depend on how card issuers and fintechs respond to the model in practice.
