Payments firms back stablecoins
Big payments players are rebuilding cross-border rails around stablecoins, with Visa, Stripe and Mastercard moving toward blockchain settlement to speed up and cut costs. (cryptoslate.com). Merchants and platforms are also getting easier pay-with-crypto options—Paysafe said MoonPay integration lets merchants accept crypto and receive USD settlements—which underlines the shift from crypto novelty to payments plumbing. (stocktitan.net).
Visa, Stripe, and Mastercard are no longer treating stablecoins like a side experiment. In 2025 and 2026, all three moved them closer to the core plumbing that actually settles money between banks, merchants, and payment partners. (visa.com) (stripe.com) (mastercard.com) A stablecoin is a crypto token designed to hold a fixed price, usually 1 United States dollar. The pitch is simple: move dollars over blockchain networks the way an email moves over the internet, instead of waiting for bank cutoffs, correspondent banks, and batch settlement. (visa.com) (stripe.com) That matters most in cross-border payments, where one transfer can pass through several banks before it lands. Each extra bank adds fees, foreign-exchange spreads, compliance checks, and delay, which is why international business payments can still feel slower than sending a photo. (stripe.com) (visa.com) Visa has been the clearest about turning stablecoins into settlement infrastructure. On December 16, 2025, Visa said United States issuer and acquirer partners could settle with Visa in Circle’s USD Coin, and it disclosed more than $3.5 billion in annualized stablecoin settlement volume. (visa.com) Visa widened that push on July 31, 2025, when it added support for more dollar-backed stablecoins, the euro-backed Euro Coin, and more blockchains inside its settlement platform. In October 2025, Visa Direct also announced a stablecoin prefunding pilot for businesses sending cross-border payouts. (visa.com 1) (visa.com 2) Stripe is coming at the same problem from the business account side. In May 2025, it launched Stablecoin Financial Accounts in 101 countries, letting businesses hold dollar-denominated balances and move money on either stablecoin rails or traditional financial rails from the Stripe Dashboard. (stripe.com 1) (stripe.com 2) Those accounts run on Bridge, the stablecoin orchestration company Stripe acquired in 2025. Stripe said in its 2026 annual update that stablecoin payment volume doubled in 2025 to around $400 billion, with about 60% estimated to be business-to-business payments. (stripe.com 1) (stripe.com 2) Mastercard has taken the network approach, making stablecoins usable across more of the merchants, issuers, and money-movement products already connected to Mastercard rails. In June 2025, it said it would enable Global Dollar, PayPal United States Dollar, USD Coin, and First Digital United States Dollar across its network and add new capabilities through Mastercard Move and its Multi-Token Network. (mastercard.com) Mastercard kept building in 2026. In March, it launched a Crypto Partner Program for blockchain payments, stablecoin settlement, and cross-border commerce, and it also announced a deal to acquire stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK for up to $1.8 billion. (mastercard.com) (mastercard.com) The merchant side is changing too, because businesses do not need to hold crypto themselves to offer crypto checkout. Paysafe’s new MoonPay-powered product lets merchants accept cryptocurrencies and stablecoins through Paysafe’s gateway, while the merchant can receive United States dollars, other fiat currencies, or stablecoins after conversion. (paysafe.com) (paysafe.com) (moonpay.com) That is the real shift here: consumers may see a “pay with crypto” button, but the bigger story is back-end settlement. The card giants and payment processors are trying to keep the familiar front end of cards, dashboards, and merchant tools while swapping in faster blockchain-based rails underneath. (visa.com) (stripe.com) (mastercard.com)
