Visa Taps Onchain Lending to Finance Stablecoin Card Programs

Global payment processing giant Visa is combining payment network data with blockchain lending tools to help stablecoin-linked card programs and fintechs borrow working capital.

Announced on Tuesday, Visa said lenders can use VisaNet settlement data alongside blockchain transaction records to assess a payment business’s performance and determine financing terms.

“We’re seeing how trusted payment data and onchain technologies can work together to unlock new forms of liquidity, helping businesses access capital in ways that are more transparent, programmable and aligned to the speed of modern commerce,” Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s global head of growth products and partnerships, said in a statement.

According to Birwadker, stablecoins are changing how money moves and creating opportunities to redesign the infrastructure behind payments. Visa said onchain lending protocols have processed more than $694 billion in stablecoin loans since 2020, citing its analytics dashboard.

On its own network, payment volume across more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs grew nearly 200% year over year, while stablecoin settlement volume rose more than 15-fold to an annualized rate above $20 billion.

The announcement follows Visa’s argument last October that stablecoin lending could bring portions of the $40 trillion global credit market onto blockchains. In July, the company introduced a stablecoin platform for banks and fintechs that combines issuance, wallets, transfers, and treasury functions with its payment infrastructure.

“Traditional financing structures often require significant scale, operating history or manual underwriting processes before credit becomes available,” the company wrote. “Visa believes blockchain-based lending infrastructure, supported by trusted payment data, can help address these challenges while introducing greater transparency and efficiency.”

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Visa cited its work with Credit Coop as an early example of the financing model. Credit Coop provides working capital and settlement financing, using smart contracts to automate funding, collateral management, and repayment. With customer authorization, it combines Visa settlement data with blockchain records to assess credit performance.

The loans draw on settlement receivables—the money a payment business is due to receive—with repayments collected from those incoming funds.

Visa said the model has financed more than $2.5 billion in cumulative settlement volume since 2023, with zero defaults across participating facilities. The release did not name participating lenders or specify financing rates or broader availability.

Visa has also been expanding its stablecoin payment services. In April, it added five blockchains–Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon, and Tempo–to its settlement program, bringing the total to nine and disclosing a $7 billion annualized settlement rate at the time.