Payments Giant VISA starts Testing Stablecoin Settlements, Mass Adoption ahead?

One of the world’s largest payments companies VISA Inc (NYSE: V) has started testing stablecoin settlements on its platform. Cuy Sheffield, VISA’s head of the crypto division confirmed the developments at the StarkWare Sessions 2023.

He said that VISA is building a “muscle memory” for settlements that allow customers to convert crypto assets and fiat currencies on the platform. Sheffield added that the company is currently testing large value settlement payments. He said:

“We’ve been testing how to actually accept settlement payments from issuers in USDC starting on Ethereum and paying out in USDC on Ethereum. So, these are large value settlement payments.”

The payments giant has been already working on Ethereum integration to facilitate automatic payments. Besides, VISA is also investing majorly in global settlements between digital assets and fiat currencies. This is one area where the company is willing to build a “muscle memory”. Sheffield added that just as one can convert USD and Euros, the VISA platform should also be able to convert between traditional dollars and tokenized dollars like stablecoins.

If this happens, it could majorly boost the use of stablecoins for global payments using the payments network. This would further lead to the mass adoption of stablecoins and other digital assets.

VISA Plans to Overcome SWIFT Challenges

As per the latest development, VISA is planning to incorporate blockchain technology into its existing network. However, all the settlements still take place on the SWIFT system, a non-profit cooperative society formed by bankers from Europe. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Sheffield explained

“We set all over Swift, so we can’t move money as frequently as we’d like because there are a number of limitations that exist in those networks. And so, we’ve been experimenting, we publicly announced. We’ve been testing how to actually accept settlement payments [with stablecoins]”.

VISA believes that stablecoin and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could play a meaning full role in the global payments landscape of the future. Sheffield added that VISA is working to derive value from the existing bank rails and rebuild that on top of the blockchain rails using stable boards.