Visa and Solana Forge New Cross-Border Payment Frontier

Just yesterday, Visa made a significant stride towards modernising the realm of cross-border financial transactions. Their latest move involves extending their stablecoin settlement capabilities to the Solana blockchain, marking a pivotal moment in the evolution of global payment systems.

Cuy Sheffield, Head of Crypto at Visa expressed that, “By leveraging stablecoins like USDC and global blockchain networks like Solana and Ethereum, we’re helping to improve the speed of cross-border settlement and providing a modern option for our clients to easily send or receive funds from Visa’s treasury.”

In this endeavour, Visa is forging a direct partnership with prominent merchant acquirers, Worldpay and Nuvei. The primary objective? To revolutionise and streamline the often concealed intricacies of fund transfers between banks, specifically from the issuer's bank to the acquirer's bank.

As a globally recognised leader in digital payments, Visa boasts an extensive reach, facilitating transactions that span across more than 200 countries and territories. These transactions encompass a vast spectrum, involving consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and governmental entities.

Now, by harnessing the potential of Visa's own Circle account, the company is poised to usher in a new era of efficiency and transparency in the settlement process. The integration of USDC into Visa's payment infrastructure empowers Visa to expedite fund transfers to USDC-acquiring entities like Worldpay and Nuvei, promising reduced settlement times for the multitude of merchants who rely on their services.

The significance of this transition extends beyond mere expediency; it represents a harmonious convergence of Visa's well-established fiat ecosystem with the dynamic realm of stablecoins and the broader cryptocurrency landscape.

What makes this collaboration even more remarkable is Visa's decision to leverage the Solana blockchain, a platform renowned for its impressive transaction throughput. Solana consistently maintains an average of 400 transactions per second (TPS), with the ability to surge beyond 2,000 TPS across various use cases during peak demand periods. Visa's pioneering move positions it as one of the inaugural major financial institutions to adopt the Solana network on such a scale for settlements.

How it all Started?

This announcement follows the resounding success of a two-year pilot programme conducted in partnership with Crypto.com. During this pilot, Visa emerged as a trailblazer among major payment networks, venturing into the realm of stablecoin settlement from the issuance perspective.

The journey commenced back in 2021 when Visa embarked on an exploration of USDC's potential within its treasury operations, utilising it in conjunction with the Ethereum blockchain. This initiative unfolded within the landscape of Visa's live card programme in Australia, enabling the reception of payments from Crypto.com by harnessing the power of USDC.

Visa's innovative approach effectively circumvented the previously entrenched challenges of lengthy currency conversion processes that used to span several days, along with the associated costs of international wire transfers. Now, Crypto.com seamlessly deploys USDC to fulfill its settlement obligations tied to Visa cards in the Australian market, with clear intentions to replicate this transformative capability across other markets in the near future.

In a resonant declaration, Cuy underscored the organisation's unwavering commitment to harnessing cutting-edge technologies such as stablecoins and blockchain networks. Their mission: to usher in a new era of expediency and efficiency in the realm of cross-border settlements. He stated in a press release, “Visa is committed to being on the forefront of digital currency and blockchain innovation and leveraging these new technologies to help improve the way we move money.”

Jeremy Allaire, Co-founder and CEO at Circle added that, “Circle built USDC to provide a functional digital dollar that could move at the speed of the internet to facilitate secure, reliable payments. Expanding the pilot exemplifies how pairing USDC with Visa’s innovation opens up the future of payments, commerce and financial applications.”

Visa’s Commitment

Jim Johnson, President of Worldpay Merchant Solutions, highlights the transformative potential of Visa's USDC settlement capability. It not only broadens the spectrum of choices available to merchants when receiving funds but also enhances their ability to efficiently manage treasury operations. This development underscores Visa's commitment to pioneering financial solutions that empower businesses, both large and small.

Nabil Manji, Head of Crypto and Web3 at Worldpay, sheds light on the broader implications of this innovative step. Visa's introduction of the USDC settlement service serves as the initial stride towards providing Worldpay's clients with swifter, more cost-effective settlement mechanisms for consumer payments.