Initiatives From Mastercard And Visa Bring Stablecoin Payments Closer to the Mainstream

Two of the world’s largest payments networks early Thursday announced programs geared to bring stablecoins further into the mainstream of money movement. Visa Inc. said its Visa Direct faster-payments platform is launching a commercial service that will incorporate stablecoins. And Mastercard Inc., with its BVNK unit, launched Mastercard Global Money Platform, which brings together the card network’s payments technology with BVNK’s stablecoin expertise. Mastercard in August closed on its $1.8 billion acquisition of BVNK.

In its latest initiative, Visa has signed up Inyo Global, which the network says has adopted technology needed to offer a commercial service. Based in Cambridge, Mass., Inyo Global offers technology that brings cards, cross-border transfers, and stablecoin capability into a single application programming interface, according to the company.

A connection to Inyo’s platform allows businesses to sign up users, accept payments, control fraud, and send domestic and international payouts to more than 180 countries through Visa Direct, according to information from Visa.

Now, the object at Visa is to stimulate stablecoin adoption, particularly for applications such as cross-border transfers, which can be costly on traditional networks. Such international payments are now widely seen as a natural first application for stablecoins. “The next chapter for stablecoins is adoption. Over the last several years, we’ve worked with several partners and clients to explore how these technologies can improve money movement. We’re now seeing those efforts translate into live implementations, helping businesses access more flexible and efficient ways to fund and move money globally through Visa Direct,” says Vira Platonova, global head of Visa Direct, in a statement.

Robson Dantas, chief product and technology officer at Inyo Global, says in a statement the venture with Visa will give the company’s clients “a new way to fund their payouts, one that is available around the clock.” For its part, Visa sees the new venture as a reflection of mounting demand for stablecoin-based processing as a way to manage money movement cross-border at greater speed. Costs for the new service were not immediately available.

For Mastercard, the move to launch the Global Money Platform represents the network’s first major integration with BVNK and its stablecoin capabilities. Among the initial users are Nuvei, Marqeta, Ontop, Beem, and Almond Fintech, the network says. With the platform, users will be able to spend stablecoins at Mastercard-accepting merchants globally. These number in the hundreds of millions, according to the card network.

With stablecoins in place of national and local currencies, users cite what they see as a freer money flow at lower costs. “The future of global commerce depends on money moving as freely as the businesses and consumers it serves, across borders, currencies and increasingly, between traditional and digital forms of money. Stablecoins are becoming an increasingly important part of that future,” said Nuvei chairman and chief executive Phil Fayer, in a statement.