Visa is now testing whether stablecoins can help financial institutions settle cross-border payments seven days a week, including weekends and public holidays.
The company has partnered with Nium, a cross-border payments company, for a pilot under Singapore’s BLOOM initiative, led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
The project aims to test whether regulated stablecoins can help reduce delays caused by traditional banking hours.
As traditional payment systems often depend on banking days, some transactions may have to wait until the next business day before they are fully settled. The goal of Visa and Nium is to see if stablecoin-based payments can allow settlement to continue even when banks are closed.
Testing Regulated Stablecoins
Visa and Nium will use regulated stablecoins backed by the U.S. dollar and euro, but they have not yet announced which specific stablecoins will be used in the pilot. The project will focus on the settlement process between financial institutions instead of how consumers make payments.
They are testing whether stablecoins can help banks and payment companies move money across countries faster.
Since stablecoins operate on blockchain networks, which can process transactions at any time, this could give financial institutions more flexibility when moving money across borders.
Singapore as the Regulator
The project will be conducted under BLOOM, an initiative created and led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Singapore’s central bank and financial regulator. It aims to explore how traditional financial systems can work with stablecoin-based payment systems.
An important part of the project is maintaining security and compliance. Visa wants to explore stablecoin settlement while keeping the existing security and compliance standards.
The project will also examine interoperability, or how traditional payment networks can connect with stablecoin payment rails instead of completely changing the existing system. The overall goal is to make the two systems work together.
Part of Visa’s Stablecoin Strategy
This pilot is part of Visa’s bigger effort to explore stablecoins and blockchain technology. Visa already supports stablecoin settlement across several blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, and Avalanche.
Visa also supports different stablecoins, such as USDC and EURC. The company plans to continue working with different stablecoins and blockchain networks instead of relying on only one.
To Nium, this project adds to its existing use of stablecoins for cross-border business payments.
Although the Visa-Nium project is still in the early pilot stage, the companies have not yet announced when it will begin, which financial institutions will participate, or how many transactions will be processed.
The pilot will test whether stablecoins can make cross-border payments faster while following security and regulatory standards.
