Stablecoins Set to Challenge Wires and Cards in Visa Pilot

Visa is bringing stablecoins into the mainstream. The company unveiled a pilot at Sibos 2025 that lets businesses prefund cross-border payouts with stablecoins instead of traditional currency.

The program runs through Visa Direct, Visa’s global money-movement network connecting more than 11 billion cards, bank accounts, and wallets. 

The pitch is straightforward: move money faster, keep capital working, and modernize treasury operations. For card professionals, the key question is whether that speed and flexibility could eventually draw volume away from traditional credit and debit cards. It’s possible.

Chris Newkirk, President of Commercial & Money Movement Solutions at Visa, said: “Cross-border payments have been stuck in outdated systems for far too long. Visa Direct’s new stablecoins integration lays the groundwork for money to move instantly across the world, giving businesses more choice in how they pay.”

Cross-border B2B payments are vast. Juniper Research projects transactions will climb from 16.3 billion in 2025 to 18.3 billion by 2030.

Right now, much of that volume still flows through wire transfers — SWIFT and correspondent banking — which typically take one to five days, cost $20–$50 per transaction plus FX spreads, and lack real-time tracking because of multiple intermediaries. 

Cards handle a smaller yet significant portion of payments, including SaaS subscriptions, travel expenses, and recurring vendor charges. They offer instant authorization and built-in credit, but cross-border fees of 2–5% make them less appealing for large invoice payments. 

Those categories have long been steady revenue sources for issuers. While stablecoins won’t replace existing payment rails overnight, they have the potential to chip away at both wire transfers and card transactions in different ways.

Stablecoins offer clear technical advantages. Settlement happens in minutes, not days. Fees can be cents on efficient chains instead of percentage-based interchange. They run 24/7, unlike banking windows. 

For big invoices, the math favors stablecoins once you strip out interchange. For mid-sized invoices where wires feel clumsy, stablecoins can be nimbler. In practice, less friction means more liquidity and better control.

Visa’s pilot allows businesses to prefund accounts using stablecoins instead of fiat. The company treats these tokens as “money in the bank,” making funds immediately available for local-currency payouts.

This approach gives banks, remitters, and other financial institutions faster, more flexible options to manage liquidity. The pilot is currently limited but is planned for expansion in 2026.

Adoption won’t be seamless. Treasury and ERP systems are built for banks and card networks, not blockchains. Compliance is uneven, so businesses often have to build or buy their own AML/KYC checks for stablecoin transactions — unlike the standardized safeguards provided by wires and cards. 

Counterparty risk also matters: firms need confidence that stablecoin issuers actually hold sufficient reserves before placing significant balances with them. Regulatory uncertainty adds another layer of friction, as rules vary across jurisdictions, slowing real-world adoption.

Predictability is another key factor. One highlight from Visa’s announcement is that stablecoins can reduce exposure to local-currency swings, making treasury outcomes more stable — a big deal for CFOs who prioritize certainty.

Momentum is growing among SMEs in emerging markets facing slow, costly cross-border payments; crypto-native firms already paying contractors and suppliers in stablecoins; and fintechs like Circle, PayPal, and Stripe, which are rolling out fiat on/off-ramps so merchants can settle on-chain when it makes sense.

These experiments could seed broader adoption before large-scale ERP integration arrives.

Mastercard, PayPal, Circle, and Stripe are all testing pieces of the same puzzle — settlement pilots, merchant tooling, ramps on and off fiat. Mastercard has pushed into end-to-end stablecoin acceptance and recently expanded its work with Circle to cover remittances, B2B, and creator payouts. 

PayPal has rolled out its own stablecoin, PYUSD, and tied it into new P2P flows across PayPal and Venmo. Stripe has enabled USDC on Base for Shopify merchants, giving them the option to settle in local currency or keep funds on-chain.

Circle has partnered with Finastra and FIS to plug USDC into banking hubs, lowering the lift for financial institutions to pilot stablecoin settlement. 

Visa’s pilot signals the same strategic reality: networks will adapt, but issuers and acquirers must sharpen their playbooks. Protect the recurring-payments and T&E niches that favor cards, yes — but also design ways to capture value if stablecoins start taking share.

This feels like an evolutionary shift. Wires will remain the go-to for very large, regulated transfers. Cards will keep their hold on travel, T&E, subscriptions, and small recurring payments. 

Stablecoins are carving a third rail: faster than wires, cheaper than cards, and programmable in ways that open new product designs. For card issuers, that means watching closely, experimenting where feasible, and preparing to monetize in new ways as rails blur.

“By leveraging stablecoins through Visa Direct, we’re not just accelerating cross-border payouts — we’re redefining treasury operations for a digital-first economy,” Visa told us when reached for comment. “This is about giving financial institutions the speed, flexibility, and predictability they need to thrive in a modern payments landscape.”