Visa Pushes USDC Settlement Into Core Payment Systems Across the U.S.

Visa’s Strategic Shift on Blockchain Payments

Payment giant Visa is accelerating its embrace of stablecoin infrastructure by rolling out USDC settlement capabilities to U.S. financial institutions. Rather than keeping blockchain payments as an experimental side project, the company is now embedding Circle’s dollar-backed stablecoin directly into its core settlement workflows. Select issuer and acquirer partners can now settle VisaNet obligations using USDC alongside traditional fiat channels.

This marks a meaningful departure from how payments have operated for decades. The immediate benefit is operational speed—USDC transfers move 24/7 across blockchains, even on weekends and holidays when traditional banking systems grind to a halt. For banks and fintech platforms, this capability could significantly compress settlement cycles, unlock better liquidity management, and break free from the rigid cut-off times built into legacy payment infrastructure.

Real-World Adoption Already Underway

The transition from theory to practice is already happening. Cross River Bank and Lead Bank have begun settling Visa transactions in USDC on the Solana blockchain. These early adopters are testing the waters, and initial results appear to validate the model. As of November 30, 2025, Visa’s monthly stablecoin settlement volumes had reached an annualized rate exceeding $3.5 billion—a significant jump that demonstrates genuine institutional demand, not just pilot-phase enthusiasm.

Building Proprietary Blockchain Infrastructure

Visa isn’t stopping at settlement integration. The company has partnered with Circle as a design collaborator on Arc, an upcoming Layer 1 blockchain explicitly engineered for high throughput and scalability. Arc is being positioned as blockchain infrastructure purpose-built to handle Visa’s global commercial activity at scale. Once operational, Visa intends to run a validator node on the network and route USDC settlements through Arc’s rails, cementing its influence in the ecosystem.

Broader Institutional Access Ahead

U.S. market access is being expanded gradually through 2026, signaling this isn’t a limited trial but a sustained rollout. Visa has even launched a global Stablecoins Advisory Practice under its Consulting & Analytics division to help financial institutions navigate the stablecoin landscape—advising on market positioning, strategic direction, and deployment frameworks.

The Bigger Picture

What Visa is demonstrating is a fundamental reimagining of how institutional payments could function. By bridging traditional banking reliability with blockchain speed, transparency, and flexibility, the company is positioning itself as a crucial connective layer. This isn’t merely a pilot program for a niche use case—it’s the early blueprint for how major payment systems might operate when blockchain infrastructure matures beyond experimentation.