Visa's stablecoin settlement volume hit a $20 billion annualized run rate as of September 8, 2026, a fifteenfold increase from the same period a year earlier. The company now operates 160-plus stablecoin-linked card programs across more than 40 countries, with payment volume on those programs up ...
"Stablecoin-linked cards are in hypergrowth mode." — Cuy Sheffield, Head of Crypto, Visa
Visa's stablecoin settlement volume hit a $20 billion annualized run rate as of September 8, 2026, a fifteenfold increase from the same period a year earlier. The company now operates 160-plus stablecoin-linked card programs across more than 40 countries, with payment volume on those programs up nearly 200% year over year. Alongside the volume disclosure, Visa announced a new onchain credit model — built with smart-contract lender Credit Coop — that pairs VisaNet settlement data with blockchain-based lending to finance stablecoin card operators' working capital needs.
Mastercard took a different route. On August 3, 2026, it closed the $1.8 billion acquisition of BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure firm processing roughly $30 billion in annualized stablecoin payment volume across 130 markets. The deal made Mastercard the first major publicly listed payments network to own stablecoin plumbing outright. PayPal, meanwhile, launched PYUSDx on September 9 — a platform letting third parties issue custom stablecoins backed by PYUSD — though its $100 million in processed volume remains orders of magnitude smaller than the card networks' settlement figures.
The three moves, arriving within days of each other, mark a shift from pilot programs to infrastructure competition. Card networks are no longer testing whether stablecoins fit their business; they are racing to control the settlement layer underneath them.
Visa's stablecoin settlement program began as a single Crypto.com pilot in 2021. The trajectory since then:
| Period | Annualized Settlement Rate | Card Programs | |--------|---------------------------|---------------| | 2021 | Pilot (undisclosed) | 1 | | Q4 FY2025 (Nov 2025) | $3.5 billion | ~130 | | April 2026 | $7 billion | ~140 | | September 2026 | $20 billion | 160+ |
Settlement grew from $3.5 billion to $20 billion in approximately ten months — a 5.7x increase within a single fiscal year. The number of stablecoin-linked card programs tripled from roughly 55 a year ago to over 160 across 40-plus countries, according to Visa's fiscal Q2 2026 disclosures.
These figures remain small relative to Visa's total network volume, which processed $16.3 trillion in the twelve months ending March 2026. Stablecoin settlement at a $20 billion run rate represents approximately 0.12% of that total. The significance lies in the growth rate, not the absolute number.
Visa stock has declined approximately 19% from its prior peak, part of a broader selloff across payment networks driven by concerns that AI agents and stablecoin-native rails could eventually displace card interchange fees, according to a February 2026 note from Citrini Research.
On September 8, 2026, Visa disclosed a new approach to working capital for stablecoin card programs. The model pairs VisaNet settlement data — transaction volumes, settlement timing, receivable flows — with onchain lending infrastructure operated by Credit Coop.
The operational mechanics: Credit Coop deploys a smart contract called Spigot that uses daily Visa settlement files to size funding and automate repayments. Stablecoin card programs borrow USDC against their future Visa settlement receivables. The entire cycle — funding, collateral management, repayment — executes programmatically onchain, creating a transparent and auditable record.
The problem this addresses is specific. Fast-growing stablecoin card programs need working capital before incoming settlement receivables arrive — a timing gap that has traditionally forced smaller or newer operators to slow their growth or accept expensive short-term financing. Traditional lenders often require long operating histories, extensive documentation, or substantial scale before approving facilities. Many stablecoin-linked programs cannot yet meet those requirements even when their underlying transaction volume is healthy.
Since 2023, the Credit Coop model has supported more than $2.5 billion in cumulative financed settlement volume, with zero defaults across participating facilities. The infrastructure has processed more than 3,000 borrow events and 9,000 repayment events onchain. Borrowing costs for participating programs have declined by as much as 30% as more lenders have underwritten these facilities, according to Visa.
Sheffield characterized the GENIUS Act — which established U.S. stablecoin regulation in July 2025 — as a "huge" turning point. Visa argued last October that stablecoin lending could eventually bring portions of the roughly $40 trillion global credit market onto blockchains, though that remains a forward-looking projection with no disclosed timeline.
Rain, a New York-based Visa Principal Member, provides the most detailed public example of how the onchain credit model operates at scale. The company settles Visa card obligations in USDC seven days a week, including weekends and holidays, through a Credit Coop revolving facility that has been active since August 2023.
Rain's disclosed facility metrics:
Rain raised a $250 million Series C in January 2026, led by ICONIQ, at an approximate $1.95 billion valuation — a 17-fold increase from roughly ten months earlier. The round followed a reported 30-fold increase in Rain's active card base and a 38-fold jump in annualized payment volume during 2025.
Karta, Rain's premium U.S. travel card, started on a small Credit Coop revolving line, grew 10x during 2025, and in June 2026 secured $140 million in financing: a $15 million Series A led by Galaxy Ventures and a $125 million institutional credit facility from Community Investment Management.
Mastercard chose to buy rather than build. The $1.8 billion acquisition of BVNK — $1.5 billion upfront plus a $300 million performance earnout — closed on August 3, 2026, five months ahead of guidance.
What Mastercard acquired:
"Digital currencies — particularly stablecoins — are increasingly addressing real-world needs in areas like cross-border B2B payments, remittances, payouts, settlement and treasury flows," said Jorn Lambert, Chief Product Officer, Mastercard.
BVNK gives Mastercard the ability to route cross-border payments through optimal rails — fiat or blockchain — based on cost, speed, and destination market infrastructure, rather than relying solely on chains of correspondent banks with their separate nostro/vostro accounts, operating hours, and transaction fees.
The competitive dynamic is notable: BVNK's client list includes Visa Direct, meaning Mastercard now owns infrastructure that a competitor uses. Coinbase had reportedly entered exclusivity to acquire BVNK at approximately $2 billion in October 2025 before mutually agreeing not to proceed in November 2025, according to Fortune and The Block.
Mastercard also announced stablecoin settlement support for USDC, PYUSD, and RLUSD with intraday and weekend cycles in June 2026, and unveiled a Crypto Partner Program in March 2026 with 85-plus companies spanning exchanges, wallets, issuers, and processors.
Mastercard has not disclosed stablecoin settlement volumes comparable to Visa's $20 billion run rate figure.
PayPal launched PYUSDx on September 9, 2026 — a developer platform built with M0 and MoonPay that lets companies issue custom onchain dollars backed by PYUSD rather than building reserves, issuance, and liquidity infrastructure from scratch.
Three initial issuers — Saturn, Concrete, and Cap — have collectively processed over $100 million in transaction volume. PYUSD itself has roughly $2.9 billion in circulation and is available in 70 markets within PayPal accounts, with variable rewards around 4% in eligible regions.
The scale difference is stark. PayPal's $100 million in PYUSDx volume compares to Visa's $20 billion annualized settlement rate and BVNK's $30 billion under Mastercard. PayPal appears to be pursuing a different strategy — becoming a reserve and issuance layer for third-party stablecoins rather than competing directly on settlement volume.
An important distinction: tokens created on PYUSDx are not PayPal or Paxos products and are not usable inside PayPal or Venmo wallets. PYUSD remains a Paxos-issued product reserved with dollar deposits, Treasuries, and similar cash equivalents.
Total stablecoin market capitalization stood at approximately $311 billion across 423 pegged assets as of September 4, 2026, according to DefiLlama, down from a May 2026 peak of $354 billion. The market is highly concentrated: USDT ($183.3 billion) and USDC ($74.3 billion) together hold 82.8% of total supply.
Global stablecoin transfer volume topped $7.2 trillion monthly in early 2026, overtaking the U.S. ACH network for the first time. Cumulative stablecoin transaction volume reached $33 trillion in 2025, up 72% year over year. Since 2020, more than $694 billion in stablecoin-denominated loans have flowed through onchain lending protocols, according to Visa's Onchain Analytics Dashboard.
Projections vary widely. Citi's base case estimates $1.9 trillion in stablecoin supply by 2030. Standard Chartered projects $2 trillion by end-2028. A Chainalysis report estimates adjusted stablecoin transaction volumes could grow from $28 trillion in 2025 to between $719 trillion and $1.5 quadrillion by 2035, though those figures include scenarios with significant uncertainty ranges.
The GENIUS Act, enacted in July 2025, established three main categories of eligible stablecoin issuers: insured depository institutions, bank holding company affiliates, and approved nonbank entities under federal oversight. The OCC issued its proposed rulemaking in early 2026, with a core delegated rulemaking window running through July 2026 and phased transitional provisions extending to July 18, 2028.
Circle received full OCC approval on July 8, 2026, becoming the first stablecoin issuer to hold a federal banking charter. Paxos and BitGo received conditional OCC approval in December 2025. Tether faces compliance challenges: approximately 25% of USDT's reserves — including Bitcoin, precious metals, and secured loans — do not qualify under the GENIUS Act's reserve requirements. Tether engaged KPMG for its first full financial audit and brought in PwC to modernize reporting systems in March 2026.
The regulatory framework has accelerated institutional adoption. Visa's Sheffield attributed the surge in stablecoin card programs partly to the GENIUS Act, noting that major global payment providers now seek to build stablecoin products in a clearer regulatory environment.
The card networks have moved from experimentation to infrastructure buildout. Visa is leveraging its settlement data and network scale to create an onchain credit market for stablecoin card operators, keeping the value chain within its ecosystem. Mastercard acquired the plumbing outright, gaining multi-rail settlement capability across 130 markets. PayPal is pursuing a third path, positioning PYUSD as a reserve layer for third-party issuance.
The strategic question is no longer whether stablecoins integrate with existing payment infrastructure but who controls the settlement layer when they do. At $20 billion and $30 billion in respective annualized run rates, Visa and Mastercard have placed material bets — though both figures remain small fractions of their total network volume. The growth rates suggest those fractions will expand. Whether the economics of stablecoin settlement replicate, complement, or eventually compress traditional interchange revenue remains an open question that neither network has publicly addressed.