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The stablecoin platform Rain announced early Tuesday it is offering non-custodial stablecoin wallets that stand behind Rain’s cards, making the cards usable at 175 million merchant locations around the world, the New York City-based company says. Founded five years ago, Rain became a Visa principal member in 2024, following up with Mastercard this year.
Non-custodial wallets are available now, Rain said, with custodial wallets set to follow by year’s end. The latter wallets will offer users ways to tap earnings on their stablecoin balances, the company says. Rain is a principal member of both Visa and Mastercard and works with Western Union to support cash payouts and get access to cross-border capability.
Rain positions the wallet as a single place for users’ stablecoins. “Money that arrives through a Rain virtual account lands in the Rain wallet as stablecoins, can fund Rain card spending…and can be sent to a bank account in local currency,” the company says.
Distribution of the new wallets will flow through companies Rain works with, the company says. Partners include Kast, a neobank app provider, and RedotPay, a crypto-payment provider, in addition to Western Union. Rain holds principal memberships with both Visa and Mastercard.
In related news Tuesday, the issuing processor Thredd said it will work with the stablecoin-settlement platform Bakkt to provide a program that settles credit card transactions in stablecoins.
The move, were it to become available in volume, could bring cost economies to card processing, the parties say. “We believe stablecoin settlement can change the economics of consumer credit the way it is already changing the economics of cross-border payments,” notes Ankit Khemka, chief product officer at Bakkt, in a statement. The companies expect to execute a proof of concept in the first half of next year.
