Visa Expands Stablecoin Settlement Network After Annualized Volume Tops $20 Billion
Key Facts
Visa said on September 8 that stablecoin settlement volume had recently exceeded an annualized run rate of $20 billion, up more than 15-fold year over year. The figure represents an annualized pace based on recent activity, not an amount achieved over a full year. In a separate update on November 10, the company added the Monad network as a settlement option for participating card issuers and acquirers, according to the Monad Foundation and The Block. Dan Roseberry, a Visa vice president, said the addition "expands the options available to our partners and represents another step toward building a multi-network infrastructure for settling stablecoin-backed payments." The latest expansion adds another network option to Visa’s effort to broaden institutional stablecoin settlement.
Alongside settlement between institutions, Visa said more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs were active worldwide during the second quarter of fiscal 2026. It added that payment volume across those programs grew about 200% year over year in the same quarter. This measure tracks card payments over a quarterly period, while the $20 billion figure refers to an annualized settlement pace; they measure activity in two different areas. The company said card programs must fund daily settlement obligations before collecting money from cardholders. It added that working capital is a constraint on the growth of some early-stage stablecoin-linked programs.
The settlement run rate reached $7 billion annually on April 29, when Visa said its global pilot supported nine blockchain networks and that the rate had risen 50% from the previous quarter. On January 14, Reuters reported that the annualized run rate had reached $4.5 billion, describing the figure as a small fraction of the $14.2 trillion in annual payments Visa processed in the previous year. These disclosures show successive readings of the run rate during 2026, from $4.5 billion in January to $7 billion in April and then more than $20 billion in September. The $14.2 trillion figure refers to the company’s total annual payments, not stablecoin settlements. The run rate remains an annualized estimate of activity at the time of disclosure, not a full-year total.
In a pilot announced on September 30, Lloyds Bank used USDC to settle $750,000 in payment obligations with Visa over seven days. Visa said the funds reached it in less than an hour, including over the weekend. Lloyds bought the token through regulated U.K. platform Archax and operated its own node on the Canton network, while Visa supported settlement on a separate public network. The company said cross-border settlement using traditional methods can take a day or more if initiated outside banking hours. The pilot offers a practical example of stablecoins being used to settle obligations between financial institutions, with each party continuing to operate on a different network.
The expansion also extended to funding transfers. On October 15, Visa said stablecoin prefunding capabilities through Visa Direct had moved from pilot to commercial deployment, with Inyo Global as the first enabled provider. Eligible customers and partners can use USDC to fund cross-border payments through the service in near real time, according to the company. Inyo’s platform supports domestic and international payments in more than 180 countries. Vera Platonova, global head of Visa Direct, said "the next chapter for stablecoins is adoption." This use differs from settling Visa’s own obligations: it concerns funding payments sent through Visa Direct, with availability remaining subject to customer and partner eligibility.
In a research estimate cited by Visa in October, annual stablecoin payment volume ranged from $401 billion to $527 billion, with business-to-business payments accounting for the largest share of cross-border flows, at 43% of the volume covered by the analysis. The largest business-payment categories included service fees at $56 billion, payroll at $43 billion and supplier payments at $28 billion. The company quoted its executive Mark Nielsen as saying that businesses "are looking for reliable and trustworthy ways to move money" and are considering stablecoins for supplier payments, treasury management and cross-border trade. Visa also said about 17% of stablecoin-linked card volume since the start of fiscal 2026 came from business and commercial card programs. These indicators reflect the range of uses the company is addressing, from settlement to commercial payments and transfer funding.
Attention on the new settlement infrastructure is turning to the privacy feature the Monad Foundation announced for institutions. The foundation said a "private settlement" feature is expected in the coming months and will allow sensitive transaction details to remain private while enabling them to be shared with auditors or regulators when needed. This follows the addition of Monad as an option for participating issuers and acquirers on Visa’s network, as reported by The Block, citing the Monad Foundation. The announcement did not specify a more precise release date. The anticipated step remains contingent on the feature being launched as described by the source, while its addition to Visa’s options was a separate development from September’s settlement-rate announcement.