Visa and Mastercard race to embed stablecoins into core payment rails

The world's two largest card networks moved aggressively to embed themselves in the stablecoin economy this week, each announcing separate infrastructure deals on August 5 while also joining forces as founding supporters of Circle's new Arc blockchain.

Visa Brings Stablecoins to Its Core Payments Rail

Visa ↗ 2.76% announced it is integrating stablecoin funding and payout capabilities into Visa Direct, its real-time push payments platform that connects more than 18 billion endpoints across 195 countries and territories. The collaboration with onchain infrastructure provider zerohash will allow eligible clients to prefund merchant accounts with stablecoins and send payouts directly in digital dollars.forkast+1

"Stablecoins are creating new opportunities to make money movement faster and more flexible, particularly for cross-border use cases," Mark Nelsen, Visa's global head of product, said in a statement. "Working with zerohash helps us bring stablecoin capabilities to our clients at scale, in a way that's reliable and interoperable with the financial systems they already rely on today."theblock

The integration builds on Visa's Stablecoin Platform, launched in July, which gave institutions tools to mint, hold, transfer and redeem digital dollars.forkast

Mastercard Pilots Compliance Framework

Mastercard ↗ 2.50% simultaneously launched a pilot with Borderless.xyz to test whether its Crypto Credential framework can streamline compliance in cross-border stablecoin payments. The pilot's first participants — Infinia, Walapay and Koywe — will use Mastercard's assurance signals under a single-audit compliance model across Borderless's network spanning more than 100 countries.cryptonews+1

"Correspondent banking solved this decades ago: originating compliance trusted downstream, no re-execution at every counterparty. Mastercard is applying that model to digital asset payments," said Kevin Lehtiniitty, CEO of Borderless.xyz.tradingview

The pilot follows Mastercard's completion of its acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK for up to $1.8 billion.tradingview

Card Giants Join Circle's Arc

Both companies also joined Circle's ↗ 4.54% new Arc blockchain as supporters alongside Global Payments ↘ 0.69% and MoneyGram, targeting enterprise use cases including agentic commerce. Visa CEO Ryan McInerney framed the company's approach on a July 28 earnings call: "Visa, going forward, will remain multi-coin, multi-chain. Our role is not to pick winners."paymentsdive

The flurry of activity follows passage of the GENIUS Act, which created a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins and has unleashed a wave of institutional entry into the sector.forkast+1