Visa

Visa is a global digital payments network operating VisaNet, a proprietary transaction-processing infrastructure that connects more than 15,000 financial institutions, tens of millions of merchants, and over 4 billion cardholders across more than 200 countries and territories. Founded in 1958 as BankAmericard and incorporated as Visa Inc. in 2007, the company does not issue cards or extend credit itself. It provides the network protocols, authorization systems, and clearing infrastructure that enable banks and fintech companies to transact securely in real time.

The Settlement Problem

Traditional card settlement runs on a five-business-day cycle tied to banking hours. Financial institutions must pre-fund settlement accounts in advance and hold collateral buffers to cover weekend and holiday transactions, when correspondent banking rails are unavailable. At Visa scale, billions of dollars cleared per day, even minor inefficiencies in the settlement layer carry material liquidity costs. Institutions running card programs must manage collateral, reconcile end-of-day balances, and absorb the operational drag of settlement windows that do not align with continuous global commerce.

Stablecoin Settlement on Solana

Visa began piloting stablecoin-based settlement internationally in 2023, allowing financial institution partners to settle VisaNet obligations using [[TOKEN:EPjFWdd5AufqSSqeM2qN1xzybapC8G4wEGGkZwyTDt1v]] instead of fiat currency via traditional rails. On December 16, 2025, Visa formally expanded this capability to the United States, marking the first time U.S. issuer and acquirer partners could settle core Visa obligations directly in stablecoins.

Cross River Bank and Lead Bank became the initial U.S. participants, both settling with Visa in USDC over the Solana blockchain. Visa chose Solana for the rollout because its throughput, near-instant finality, and low transaction fees make it operationally viable as a settlement substrate at institutional scale. The consumer card experience is unchanged; the stablecoin settlement layer is an institutional back-end function that does not alter how cardholders use their cards.

The primary operational benefit is continuous settlement availability. USDC settlement over Solana runs seven days a week, including weekends and public holidays, rather than being constrained to the five-day banking calendar. Banks in the program gain faster fund movement, improved liquidity management, simplified reconciliation, and the potential to reduce collateral requirements associated with Visa continuous settlement program.

Scale and Growth

Visa had accumulated a $3.5 billion annualized run rate in stablecoin settlement volume as of November 30, 2025, across its international pilots. By March-April 2026, that figure had grown to $7 billion, a 50% quarter-over-quarter increase, covering more than 130 stablecoin-linked card programs across more than 50 countries.

In April 2026, Visa expanded its settlement pilot from four blockchains to nine, adding Base, Polygon, Canton Network, Arc, and Tempo alongside the original four: Ethereum, Solana, Stellar, and Avalanche. The network now supports four stablecoins: USDC, EURC (euro-denominated), PYUSD, and USDG via Paxos, across this multi-chain infrastructure.

Circle Partnership and Arc Validator

Alongside the settlement expansion, Visa became a design partner for Arc, a new Layer 1 blockchain under development by Circle, the issuer of USDC. Arc is designed as a high-performance settlement substrate built to support USDC and real-world commercial flows. Visa plans to operate a validator node on Arc once the chain goes live, giving the payments network a direct role in consensus on a blockchain engineered for institutional-scale stablecoin settlement.

Stablecoin-Linked Cards

Beyond the back-end settlement program, Visa has built out a consumer-facing stablecoin layer. The 130+ stablecoin-linked card programs allow cardholders to hold stablecoin balances in wallets issued by fintech partners and spend those balances directly at any Visa-accepting merchant. This turns stablecoins from a settlement-only instrument into a full-stack payments medium accessible at the point of sale globally.

Tokenization and AI Infrastructure

Visa has layered two additional technology programs onto its core payment network. Its tokenization infrastructure replaces static card numbers with dynamic tokens at the point of transaction, reducing fraud exposure across the network. Visa enhanced this system with token assurance signals, contextual data generated throughout the token lifecycle, that inform real-time authorization decisions.

On the AI side, Visa developed a Large Transaction Model trained on billions of historical transactions, aimed at improving fraud detection accuracy and reducing false declines. The company also announced a partnership with OpenAI to integrate Visa payment rails into AI-driven commerce experiences, including scenarios where AI agents initiate and authorize purchases on behalf of users.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

Solana was the blockchain Visa chose for its first U.S. institutional settlement rollout, selected because its throughput and economics align with the demands of clearing at card-network scale. The program demonstrates that a major global payments operator can run settlement infrastructure directly over a public blockchain and maintain uninterrupted consumer card service while doing so. Solana USDC liquidity, finality time, and fee structure made it the practical starting point.

As of mid-2026, Solana remains one of nine supported settlement chains and the primary network for the U.S. bank participants that entered the program first. The expansion to additional chains reflects Visa multi-chain settlement strategy rather than a move away from Solana; the network continues to process live stablecoin settlement volume for participating U.S. financial institutions. Visa ongoing engagement positions Solana as a foundational layer within an infrastructure program that now spans nine blockchains, four stablecoins, and an annualized run rate of $7 billion and growing.