Visa has begun offering stablecoin settlement for U.S. banks using Circle’s USDC on the Solana blockchain and has established a Global Stablecoins Advisory Practice to support partner integration. The initiative has surpassed an annualized settlement volume of more than $3.5 billion as of November 30, 2025, aiming to enable near-instant, 24/7 settlement that reshapes how treasury and payments operations interact with on-chain rails.
On-chain settlement layered onto existing payment infrastructure
Visa’s settlement capability leverages USDC on Solana to deliver high-throughput, near-real-time clearing and settlement for participating institutions. By combining a tokenized digital asset pegged to fiat with a high-throughput, low-latency blockchain, the program introduces a hybrid model that supplements traditional fiat rails with on-chain settlement.
Stablecoin is defined in this context as a tokenized digital asset pegged to a fiat currency and designed to maintain a stable value relative to that currency. Solana serves as the ledger layer for USDC settlement activity, enabling continuous, around-the-clock finality that aims to reduce settlement times compared with conventional multi-day clearing cycles.
The expansion foregrounds a series of compliance and operational questions for supervised institutions adopting this model. Visa’s Global Stablecoins Advisory Practice is positioned to guide banks through the legal, governance and operational design choices required to navigate a fragmented regulatory landscape.
At the same time, the rollout highlights legacy system constraints that complicate blockchain integration. Frequently described as technological debt, existing core systems and a persistent talent gap in blockchain engineering and digital-asset operations make end-to-end implementation materially more complex for many banks.
Regulatory scrutiny and compliance burdens are likely to intensify as stablecoin arrangements intersect with anti-money-laundering, custody and prudential requirements. Operational risk now concentrates around custody segregation, reserve management and reconciliation between on-chain USDC positions and traditional fiat ledgers, even as reduced intraday funding needs and faster settlement cycles offer potential efficiency gains.
Visa’s scale alters the competitive landscape for fintechs that previously relied on first-mover advantages in stablecoin rails. The combination of a large network and a dedicated advisory practice both raises the bar for standalone fintechs and creates partnership pathways for firms that can plug into expanded settlement corridors.
Market participants focused on interoperability, compliance tooling, digital identity and blockchain analytics are likely to see increased demand. As banks and fintechs pursue integration, standardization questions across blockchains and stablecoins will become more pressing for market-level infrastructure providers and regulators seeking to limit fragmentation and operational complexity.
Visa’s USDC settlement rollout on Solana functions as a structural test of how incumbent payment infrastructure and on-chain settlement can coexist. The program presents a mix of efficiency gains and heightened compliance obligations for banks and their fintech partners, defining a new operational baseline for tokenized settlement within regulated finance.