- Visa opens USDC settlement on Solana for U.S. issuers and acquirers, alongside fiat rails.
- Cross River Bank and Lead Bank are the first U.S. banks to settle with Visa in USDC via Solana.
- Near‑instant, 24/7 USDC settlement aims to improve treasury, liquidity and operational resilience.
- Partnership with Circle and its Arc blockchain underpins Visa’s broader stablecoin strategy.
Visa is moving another step closer to the world of digital assets, allowing selected U.S. banks to settle obligations in USDC over the Solana blockchain instead of relying solely on traditional fiat channels and legacy banking schedules.
In practical terms, this means that a growing group of issuers, acquirers and fintechs in the United States can use Circle’s dollar-backed stablecoin as a settlement asset inside Visa’s own network, while cardholders and merchants continue to experience the same familiar payment flow at the point of sale.
Visa rolls out USDC settlement in the U.S.
The payments giant has formally unveiled a capability that lets U.S. issuing and acquiring institutions close their daily positions with Visa using USDC, rather than settling exclusively in bank money over conventional rails. The move extends an earlier pilot into a broader initiative aimed at commercial banks, fintech companies and crypto-native firms.
According to the company, the new option sits squarely in the settlement layer between financial institutions. The authorization and card purchase experience for consumers does not change; what is being redesigned is how money actually moves between the banks after a transaction has been approved and cleared.
Historically, this back-end process has run on legacy banking infrastructure with operating windows limited to business days. Settlement batches are typically processed during fixed cut-off times, which can complicate liquidity management, especially over weekends and public holidays.
By incorporating USDC, Visa is now enabling round-the-clock settlement, seven days a week, including weekends and holidays. Funds can be transferred over Solana in near real time, creating a more predictable and continuous flow of value between counterparties.
Internally, Visa reports that the program, which began as an experiment using USDC in 2021, has already scaled to an annualized settlement volume exceeding 3.5 billion dollars. This figure, while still small compared to the trillions processed via traditional methods, signals that institutional demand for blockchain-based settlement is no longer merely theoretical.
How settlement in USDC over Solana works
Under the updated model, participating institutions can hold and transfer USDC on Solana to meet their settlement obligations with Visa. Instead of wiring fiat through correspondent banks within restricted time frames, they send stablecoins on-chain to a designated address managed within Visa’s treasury operations.
This on-chain process is designed to deliver near-instant finality and continuous availability, in contrast with the batch-based nature of traditional payment networks. For banks and fintechs, that can translate into more granular control over intraday liquidity and fewer operational bottlenecks tied to end-of-day cycles.
From a user perspective, card payments still appear in the same way: the card is swiped, tapped, or entered online, merchants receive authorizations, and customers see charges on their statements as usual. The innovation is largely invisible to end users, focusing instead on treasury efficiency and operational resilience for the institutions behind the scenes.
Visa frames this as part of a broader effort to offer programmable, faster settlement options that integrate with existing treasury workflows. Rather than forcing banks to overhaul their systems entirely, USDC on Solana is being added as another supported rail for institutions ready to adopt it.
Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s global head of Growth Products and Strategic Partnerships, emphasized that the expansion is largely driven by demand from banking partners preparing to use stablecoins. The company says that many financial institutions are actively exploring ways to blend established payment networks with blockchain-native assets.
Cross River Bank and Lead Bank as early adopters
The first U.S. banks to operationalize this new capability are Cross River Bank and Lead Bank. Both institutions now settle with Visa using USDC over the Solana blockchain, going beyond pilot testing and into live usage.
Lead Bank’s CEO, Jackie Reses, highlighted that being among the first in the country to enable USDC settlement with Visa brings greater speed and precision to the bank’s treasury operations. The bank views the feature as a way to support more modern financial services without disrupting customer-facing products.
Cross River Bank’s founder and CEO, Gilles Gade, pointed to the reality that fintech and crypto innovators increasingly request native stablecoin integration in their products. In his view, a unified platform that supports both traditional payment networks and stablecoins is becoming a foundational requirement for global value transfer.
Visa, for its part, plans to extend availability of the USDC settlement option to a wider range of U.S. institutions through 2026. The company has not yet detailed which additional banks or processors might join next, but it has made clear that the roadmap includes more partners in the domestic market.
Institutional interest is also being stoked by the broader macro trend of stablecoins moving from niche crypto tools to mainstream financial primitives. The shift is particularly noticeable among firms that rely heavily on cross-border flows and constant access to liquidity.
Partnership with Circle and the role of Arc
Visa’s deepening work with USDC is closely tied to its strategic relationship with Circle, the issuer of the stablecoin. The two companies first began collaborating in late 2020 to test how stablecoins could interact with Visa’s traditional payment network.
Over time, that collaboration has expanded. Visa is now a design partner for Arc, Circle’s new layer‑1 blockchain built specifically to support large-scale institutional finance. Arc is currently in a public testnet phase for developers and enterprises, with a full launch targeted for 2026.
Once Arc goes live, Visa intends to use the network for USDC-based settlement and operate a validator node, embedding itself more deeply into the infrastructure. The idea is to leverage a blockchain tailored for financial institutions while maintaining the transparency and trust that Circle markets as core attributes of USDC.
Nikhil Chandhok, Circle’s chief product and technology officer, described bringing USDC settlement to the U.S. market together with Visa as a milestone for internet-native money that moves at software speed. In his view, this approach helps card issuers modernize their treasury functions and open up new service models.
Circle’s co-founder and CEO, Jeremy Allaire, has also framed the initiative as a powerful step toward broader adoption and acceptance of USDC. He argues that the flow of digital dollars from users into Visa’s network, and ultimately toward merchants, illustrates an ongoing transition toward a more internet-centric financial system.
Growing demand for stablecoins in institutional finance
Visa’s stablecoin initiative is unfolding against a backdrop where institutional demand for assets like USDC has grown steadily. Banks, payment companies and crypto platforms are experimenting with ways to combine the predictability of fiat-backed tokens with the speed of blockchain settlement.
While the current stablecoin settlement volume within Visa’s ecosystem still represents a relatively small slice of the more than 17 trillion dollars in payments the company processes annually, market analysts anticipate a substantial ramp-up over the coming years.
Research from Bloomberg Intelligence, for example, suggests that stablecoins could ultimately handle over 50 trillion dollars in annual payment flows by 2030 if adoption continues on its current trajectory. In that context, Visa’s experiments with USDC and Solana are seen as early positioning for a potential structural shift.
For financial institutions, one of the main attractions is the prospect of faster, more transparent and programmable settlement mechanisms and broader DeFi access. Being able to move tokenized dollars across networks like Solana or future platforms such as Arc may create new opportunities in areas like corporate treasury, cross-border remittances and on-chain capital markets.
At the same time, there is a recognition that stablecoin-based infrastructure must align with regulatory expectations and risk-management standards. Large players like Visa and Circle are positioning their offerings as compliant, fiat-backed, and auditable alternatives to more speculative crypto assets.
Regulatory backdrop and Visa’s broader strategy
The expansion of USDC settlement in the U.S. is taking place in an environment where rules for fiat-backed stablecoins are becoming clearer, particularly at the federal level. Recent legislation, including the GENIUS Act signed in July under the current U.S. administration, has created a more defined framework for stablecoin issuance and usage.
This clearer regulatory perimeter has helped unlock domestic growth in services built around dollar-backed tokens. Institutions that were previously hesitant to integrate stablecoins into their core operations are now more willing to explore pilots and production deployments, provided the assets meet the new standards.
Visa is using this window to solidify its role as a bridge between traditional payment systems and blockchain-based infrastructure. Beyond the USDC settlement feature, the company has launched a global advisory practice dedicated to stablecoins and is actively promoting its platform for tokenized asset issuance.
By running pilots, forming design partnerships and participating directly in emerging networks, Visa aims to ensure that whatever direction digital money takes, its rails remain involved in the movement of value. That includes everything from retail card spending to wholesale interbank transfers and corporate payments.
The result is a gradual layering of blockchain capabilities on top of the existing payment stack rather than an abrupt replacement of legacy systems. In this phased approach, USDC settlement on Solana functions as an additional option for institutions that want to experiment with faster, always-on money without abandoning established processes overnight.
Taken together, Visa’s decision to enable USDC settlement via Solana, its work with Cross River Bank and Lead Bank, and its collaboration with Circle on Arc point to a payments landscape where stablecoins and traditional rails increasingly operate side by side, giving financial institutions more flexibility in how they move and manage digital dollars.
By Hannah Pérez
