Visa and Mastercard, which together processed $22.5 trillion in card volume in fiscal year 2025, are embedding stablecoin settlement into their core infrastructure at a pace that exceeds most industry forecasts. On September 8, Visa disclosed that stablecoin settlement through its network had rea...
"Stablecoin-linked cards are in hypergrowth mode." — Cuy Sheffield, Head of Crypto, Visa, CNBC interview, September 8, 2026
Visa and Mastercard, which together processed $22.5 trillion in card volume in fiscal year 2025, are embedding stablecoin settlement into their core infrastructure at a pace that exceeds most industry forecasts. On September 8, Visa disclosed that stablecoin settlement through its network had reached a $20 billion annualized run rate — up more than 15x year over year — with 160-plus stablecoin-linked card programs live globally. Two days later, Mastercard launched Wallet Pay, a global interoperability layer connecting hundreds of digital wallets, with Alipay+ as an anchor participant.
Both moves build on a broader structural shift. In June 2026, Mastercard activated always-on stablecoin settlement across eight blockchains supporting six regulated stablecoins. That same month, Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, Coinbase, and more than 140 other firms announced Open USD (OUSD), a consortium-governed dollar stablecoin designed to compete directly with Circle's USDC and Tether's USDT. The stablecoin market now stands at $302.8 billion as of September 10, with USDT and USDC controlling $257.6 billion — 85% of the total. The card networks are positioning to capture a share of the remaining value chain by becoming infrastructure providers rather than stablecoin issuers.
The question is no longer whether traditional payment rails will adopt stablecoins. It is whether independent stablecoin issuers can retain economic value in a market where their largest distribution partners are building competing products.
On September 8, 2026, Visa reported that its stablecoin settlement volume surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, according to data published by The Block. This figure represents a 15x increase from the prior-year period. Stablecoin-linked card payment volume grew nearly 200% year over year.
The scale of deployment is significant. More than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs were live globally during Visa's fiscal second quarter, spanning consumer spending cards, corporate expense products, and cross-border remittance services. These programs allow cardholders to spend stablecoin balances at any Visa-accepting merchant, with real-time conversion occurring at the point of sale.
Visa's stablecoin infrastructure now extends beyond simple card-to-merchant settlement. The company has partnered with Credit Coop and Rain to build an onchain revolving credit facility secured by Visa settlement receivables. According to Visa's thought leadership publication, Rain has financed approximately $2.5 billion in cumulative settlement volume through the facility since August 2023, with more than 3,000 borrow events and 9,000 repayment events — and zero defaults.
The Visa Stablecoin Platform (VSP), announced in September 2026, consolidates these capabilities into a single managed environment. VSP allows banks, fintechs, and crypto-native firms to access, store, and redeem stablecoins through Visa's infrastructure, starting with Open USD (OUSD).
| Metric | Value | Period | |--------|-------|--------| | Annualized settlement run rate | $20B | FQ2 2026 | | Year-over-year growth | 15x | FQ2 2025 vs. FQ2 2026 | | Live card programs | 160+ | FQ2 2026 | | Card payment volume growth | ~200% YoY | FQ2 2026 | | Onchain credit facility volume | $2.5B cumulative | Aug 2023 – Sep 2026 | | Default rate | 0% | Aug 2023 – Sep 2026 |
Mastercard's approach differs from Visa's in scope and structure. On June 3, 2026, Mastercard announced always-on stablecoin settlement supporting six regulated stablecoins across eight blockchain networks. The supported stablecoins are USDC (Circle), PYUSD (PayPal), USDG (Paxos/Galaxy), USDP (Paxos), RLUSD (Ripple), and SoFiUSD (SoFi). The supported chains include Arbitrum, Base, Canton, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tempo, and XRPL.
The system eliminates the banking-hours constraint that has historically defined card settlement. Issuers and acquirers can now settle during intraday windows, on weekends, and on public holidays — a capability that matches the 24/7 availability of blockchain networks. Cross River, Lead Bank, CBW Bank, ARQ, and Nuvei are among the first institutions supporting the onchain settlement option. The initial rollout covers the US and Latin America.
On September 10, 2026, Mastercard launched Wallet Pay, a service connecting hundreds of digital wallet providers into a single interoperable network. Alipay+, the cross-border payments arm of Ant Group, was named as an anchor participant. According to Bitcoin.com News, Wallet Pay targets a market of approximately 4.3 billion digital wallet users globally. The service allows wallet holders to pay at Mastercard-accepting merchants without requiring a physical card or new account enrollment.
The combination of multi-chain stablecoin settlement and Wallet Pay creates a two-pronged strategy: stablecoins handle the backend settlement layer, while Wallet Pay expands the frontend access layer to wallet-native users who may never hold a plastic card.
The most structurally significant development in the stablecoin market in 2026 is Open USD (OUSD). Announced June 30 by Open Standard, the project brings together Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, DBS, OCBC, Coinbase, Ripple, Google, and Shopify — among more than 140 total partners.
Open USD is designed around three principles, according to Open Standard's published documentation:
Open Standard has stated that reserves will be held at major financial institutions in compliance with US regulatory requirements. However, the specific custodians, attestation cadence, and regulated entity behind issuance have not been disclosed ahead of launch. OUSD has not yet begun circulating; the token is expected to go live later in 2026.
The competitive implications are direct. Circle, which derives the majority of its revenue from the yield earned on USDC reserves (primarily US Treasury bills), saw its stock fall 17.55% to approximately $62 per share on the day of the OUSD announcement, according to TradingKey. Circle's stock has declined 18.7% year-to-date in 2026. While 27 analysts maintain an average "Buy" rating with a $103.29 price target, the structural threat is clear: OUSD's yield pass-through model offers distribution partners an economic incentive to shift volume away from USDC.
Visa's Credit Coop partnership represents an evolution beyond settlement into onchain credit provisioning. The mechanism works as follows, according to Visa's published case study:
The zero-default track record across $2.5 billion in financed volume and more than 3,000 borrow events is notable. Settlement receivables from Visa carry low credit risk because they represent confirmed consumer transactions already processed through Visa's network — the issuer's obligation to pay is contractual.
Karta, a premium Visa credit card for global travelers operating under Rain's bank identification number, scaled on this infrastructure. In June 2026, Karta announced a $140 million raise: a $15 million Series A led by Galaxy Ventures and a $125 million institutional credit facility from Community Investment Management, according to CryptoSlate.
This model converts Visa's settlement data into underwriting infrastructure. The onchain component provides transparency and auditability that traditional securitization lacks — every borrow and repayment event is verifiable on a public ledger.
The stablecoin market as of September 10, 2026, stands at $302.8 billion in total supply, according to Stablecoin Beat. USDT holds $183.4 billion (60.6% market share) and USDC holds $74.2 billion (24.5%). Together, the two tokens account for $257.6 billion — leaving less than $45 billion for all other stablecoins combined.
Despite USDT's supply dominance, USDC has captured 60% to 70% of adjusted on-chain transaction volume during multiple periods in 2026, according to CoinDesk. This suggests USDC's velocity (transaction volume relative to supply) substantially exceeds USDT's, indicating higher usage in payment and settlement contexts versus store-of-value holding.
The Open USD consortium directly threatens this dynamic. If OUSD successfully deploys with zero-fee minting, reserve yield pass-through, and backing from the two largest card networks plus the world's largest asset manager, the economic rationale for using USDC diminishes for institutional participants. Circle's business model depends on retaining a meaningful share of the yield earned on USDC reserves — primarily short-term US Treasuries. In a falling rate environment (the Federal Reserve has signaled continued cuts through 2026), Circle's per-dollar revenue compression is already a concern. OUSD's yield-sharing model would compound this pressure.
Tether faces a different set of challenges. USDT's opacity — Tether has never published a full third-party audit — makes it structurally disadvantaged against a consortium-backed product with major financial institution custodians and governance. However, Tether's dominance in non-US markets and on centralized exchanges provides a durable moat that consortium-backed tokens have historically failed to penetrate.
Adjusted stablecoin on-chain volume reached a record $1.79 trillion in June 2026, according to Visa's on-chain analytics dashboard tracked by Solana Compass — up 63% from May and 125% from the prior year. Standard Chartered's digital assets desk estimated in March 2026 that stablecoin on-chain settlement is growing at approximately 55% year over year, making it the fastest-growing payment rail in financial history by that measure.
The card networks' stablecoin strategy follows a pattern seen in previous payment technology transitions: incumbents allow startups to prove demand, then absorb the infrastructure into existing distribution networks.
Visa and Mastercard are not attempting to displace USDC or USDT through direct competition on supply. Instead, they are embedding stablecoin settlement into the existing card network, making stablecoins an interchangeable backend settlement option rather than a consumer-facing product. This approach commoditizes the stablecoin itself — the value accrues to the network operator (Visa, Mastercard) and the distribution partners, not the issuer.
The economic value distribution shifts accordingly:
| Value Layer | Traditional Model | Card Network Model | |-------------|------------------|-------------------| | Reserve yield | Retained by issuer (Circle, Tether) | Passed through to partners (OUSD) | | Settlement fees | Charged by issuer | Absorbed by card network | | Distribution | Third-party exchanges, wallets | Integrated into 160+ card programs | | Credit provisioning | Separate, off-chain | Onchain, collateralized by settlement data | | Governance | Single issuer | Consortium board |
This restructuring concentrates economic value at the network layer — precisely where Visa and Mastercard have operated for decades. The card networks' existing contracts with 100+ million merchants worldwide provide distribution that no stablecoin issuer can replicate independently.
The card networks are not entering the stablecoin market. They are absorbing it. Visa's $20 billion settlement run rate and Mastercard's multi-chain architecture represent the integration of stablecoin infrastructure into the world's largest payment networks — not as a side experiment, but as a core settlement option alongside traditional fiat rails.
Open USD accelerates this structural shift by attacking the economic model that sustains independent stablecoin issuers. If reserve yield flows to distribution partners rather than to the issuer, the stablecoin becomes a commodity — differentiated only by regulatory compliance, liquidity, and network effects. In that environment, the entities with the largest existing merchant networks, the deepest banking relationships, and the strongest regulatory standing are Visa and Mastercard.
The stablecoin market's $302.8 billion in supply and $1.79 trillion in monthly adjusted volume represent a payment rail that the card networks can no longer afford to treat as peripheral. The data from September 2026 suggests they no longer do.