Summary
- Visa has unveiled the Visa Stablecoin Platform aimed at banks, fintech firms, and payment providers.
- The platform will initially support Open USD and is designed to work with Visa's current stablecoin offerings.
- Visa is rolling out the service in beta with select clients prior to a broader launch.
Visa has launched a new platform that allows banks, fintech companies, and payment providers to issue, manage, and transfer stablecoins via its payment network.
In a blog announcement on Thursday, Visa detailed that the Visa Stablecoin Platform (VSP) merges stablecoin minting, redemption, wallet infrastructure, and treasury management into one comprehensive system. This approach eliminates the need for financial institutions to construct their own blockchain infrastructure, as it seamlessly incorporates stablecoin functions into current payment and settlement processes.
Jack Forestell, Visa's Chief Product and Strategy Officer, stated, "Stablecoins are opening up a new layer of programmable money, but for most institutions the hard part isn't the concept, it's the operational reality. With the Visa Stablecoin Platform, we're giving our clients a single place to mint, move, and manage stablecoin operations with the controls, security, and network reach they already expect from Visa."
Stablecoins, as their name suggests, are cryptocurrencies aimed at maintaining a consistent value, typically pegged to the U.S. dollar. They have collectively become a market worth approximately $304 billion, according to CoinGecko.
At its launch, the Visa Stablecoin Platform will support Open USD (OUSD), a stablecoin released by the Open Standard consortium in June, along with Visa's existing backing for Circle's USDC and Paxos' USDG, according to Fortune. The platform, which is initially available to select beta clients, also enables institutions to manage wallets, transfer funds, and integrate these wallets with their existing treasury and settlement systems, featuring transaction approval controls and audit logs.
This announcement follows several strategic initiatives by Visa in the stablecoin sector.
In October, Visa released research suggesting that stablecoins could facilitate the transition of parts of the $40 trillion global credit market onto blockchain networks, citing over $670 billion in stablecoin lending in the past five years.
In March, Visa became the first major payments firm to join the Canton Network as a Super Validator, aimed at assisting banks in using stablecoins for payment, settlement, and treasury operations on a privacy-oriented blockchain network.
In April, Visa expanded its stablecoin settlement program by incorporating Base, Polygon, Canton, Arc, and Tempo, increasing the total number of supported blockchain networks to nine. At that time, the company reported an annualized stablecoin settlement volume of $7 billion and indicated that it supported over 130 stablecoin-linked card programs across more than 50 countries.