Visa and Mastercard reported results that pair financial performance with disclosures on stablecoin settlement and emerging use cases. Visa noted an annualized global stablecoin settlement run rate of $4.6 billion and said it now enables stablecoin card issuance in more than 50 countries, with CEO Ryan McInerney framing the effort as part of a broader push to connect digital assets to everyday payments. He also highlighted that stablecoins have tremendous growth and disruption potential but remain in the early stages of adoption for payments use cases, and that Visa’s goal is to build a secure, seamless interoperable layer between stablecoins and traditional fiat payments at scale worldwide.
Visa outlined concrete steps taken this quarter, including expanding stablecoin settlement with USDC into the United States to improve speed and liquidity for banks and FinTechs, and launching a global stablecoins advisory practice to assist clients with strategy, market entry planning, and technology enablement. McInerney also said Visa is piloting Visa Direct stablecoin payouts, allowing U.S. platforms to send funds directly to workers’ and users’ stablecoin wallets. The company stressed that the stablecoin opportunity remains additive to existing business lines, pointing to on-ramps and off-ramps, settlement, money movement, consulting, and value-added services as parallel growth paths. Executives noted that they do not expect stablecoins to immediately reshape mature digital payment markets, as demand today is strongest in regions with constrained access to U.S. dollars and in cross-border scenarios where settlement speed matters most.
Mastercard framed stablecoins as “another form of currency” that benefits from routing through a trusted global network, rather than a disruptive replacement. CEO Michael Miebach said stablecoins and agentic commerce are emerging opportunities where Mastercard has a natural role to play, adding that most crypto and stablecoin use today involve trading, while for Mastercard it is another currency the network can support. Mastercard highlighted work enabling stablecoin purchases, facilitating transactions, and supporting stablecoin settlement directly on its rails, underscoring that trust, interoperability, and global acceptance are key to broader adoption. During the quarter, Mastercard supported co-brand partners such as MetaMask as they expanded across geographies, worked with Gemini on what Miebach described as the first business-focused stablecoin co-brand, and continued to broaden settlement capabilities, including partnerships with Ripple.
Stablecoins are also being woven into the networks’ push toward agentic commerce, where AI-powered agents initiate transactions on behalf of consumers and businesses. The regulatory backdrop to these developments is shifting. The Senate Agriculture Committee advanced a crypto market structure bill that would grant the CFTC primary authority over spot digital commodity trading, while securities provisions remain under the Senate Banking Committee’s jurisdiction and must be merged into a final package. Separately, the SEC and CFTC have begun aligning on shared data standards and coordinated supervision, signaling a move away from fragmented oversight.
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