Visa has announced the initiation of USDC-based settlements within the United States as part of its ongoing stablecoin settlement pilot program to modernize the settlement infrastructure underpinning global commerce. U.S. issuers and acquirers can now settle with Visa using Circle’s USDC, with Cross River Bank and Lead Bank as initial participants, who began settlements over the Solana blockchain. The rollout is planned to scale nationwide by 2026.
The company is also partnering as a design partner for Circle’s forthcoming Layer1 blockchain, Arc. Currently in public testnet, Arc is being developed with a focus on performance and scalability to support Visa’s on-chain global commerce activities. Once Arc launches, Visa intends to use it for USDC settlements on its network and to operate validator nodes.
Visa’s Rubail Birwadker emphasized that bank partners are moving from a review phase to actual deployment, seeking faster and more flexible settlement while maintaining security, compliance, and resilience. The architecture aims to modernize liquidity management and interoperability, connecting existing payment systems with blockchain-based infrastructure and enabling near real-time settlement through a 7-day framework.
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