Visa’s Latest Crypto Venture Is the Visa Stablecoin Platform – Digital Transactions

Visa Inc. has been involved in various stages of stablecoin processing for the last three years, but this week the card network stepped up its involvement with the cryptocurrency, launching Visa Stablecoin Platform.

The new service is starting out in beta testing with “select clients,” Visa says, as companies determine how the technology may work out for them.

This latest initiative is specifically intended to help banks and fintechs work out how to manage stablecoin transactions, Visa says. It also comes as U.S. lawmakers draw up rules for the digital currency and as Visa’s rival, Mastercard Inc., this summer expanded its on-chain settlement services for regulated stablecoins. Stablecoins are digital currencies whose value is pegged to a national fiat currency, often the U.S. dollar.

With VSP, client institutions and payments processors receive access to stablecoins along with storage and redemption services, Visa says. The service is starting out with Open USD, or OUSD, a U.S. dollar coin launched in June by Open Standard, a platform backed by more than 140 companies. As its name implies, the coin is intended to be shared among issuers as a neutral technology.

The latest project is meant to reassure companies and backers regarding how stablecoins work and how their potential may unfold. “For most institutions, the hard part isn’t the concept, it’s the operational reality,” says Jack Forestell, Visa’s chief product and strategy officer, in a statement. VSP, he adds, is aimed at helping companies “turn interest in stablecoins into real products and real payment flows.”

The VSP initiative offers access to Open USD, as well as digital-wallet technology and integration with Visa’s network, Visa says. This latter capability is meant to allow users to more readily include stablecoin processing in their existing payment, treasury, and settlement operations, according to Visa.

The introduction of VSP follows the network’s introduction last year of USDC settlement for U.S. banks. USDC is a stablecoin issued by Circle Internet Financial. Visa in April announced it was expanding its stablecoin venture by adding five blockchains, bringing the total to nine. At the time, Visa said its stablecoin pilot had reached a run rate of $7 billion in annualized settlement volume, up 50% from 2025’s December quarter.