Visa has announced a partnership with digital assets infrastructure provider Aquanow to extend its stablecoin settlement capabilities to financial institutions across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA).
The collaboration integrates Aquanow’s platform with Visa’s existing payment technology, allowing issuers and acquirers on Visa’s network to settle transactions using approved stablecoins, including USDC.
Visa said the move would reduce costs, operational complexity, and settlement times, while enabling 365-day availability for cross-border payments. The company first began settling transactions in stablecoin in 2023 through a pilot programme; it now reports a monthly volume exceeding an annualised run rate of $2.5bn (£2bn).
Godfrey Sullivan, Visa’s head of product and solutions for CEMEA, described the partnership as a step toward modernising payment rails and reducing dependence on traditional systems involving multiple intermediaries.
Phil Sham, chief executive of Aquanow, said the tie-up would help institutions settle payments “with the speed and transparency of the internet”.
