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Visa has moved stablecoin prefunding on Visa Direct, its push-payments network, from pilot into commercial deployment. Payments processor Inyo Global is the first enabler, and its clients can now prefund cross-border payouts with USDC in near real time instead of relying only on traditional bank funding windows, according to Visa's October 15 release.
The stablecoin sits on the sender's side of the transaction. Inyo's platform pays out across more than 180 countries, and recipients still receive local currency. The release names USDC as the only stablecoin and does not identify the blockchains used, the corridors covered or any expected volumes. Availability "varies by eligibility and geography," the release says.
"The next chapter for stablecoins is adoption," said Vira Platonova, Global Head of Visa Direct. "We're now seeing those efforts translate into live implementations." Robson Dantas, Chief Product and Technology Officer and co-founder at Inyo Global, said: "Innovation in money movement is ultimately about creating a better experience for customers."
The production launch arrives a little over a year after Visa announced the prefunding pilot at Sibos in September 2025, when it said the pilot was expected to reach limited availability by April 2026.
Visa's own disclosures show its broader stablecoin numbers climbing quickly. At its Visa Payments Forum in June, the company put stablecoin settlement across VisaNet at an annualized run rate of approximately $7 billion and said more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs were live or in development. By September 8, a Visa web page said settlement volume had "recently surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, up more than 15x year over year."
Those figures warrant some caution. Visa has not said what period the run rates are annualized from or how stablecoin settlement volume is counted.
The competitive picture has also shifted under Visa Direct. BVNK, which began powering stablecoin payments for Visa Direct in January, agreed in March to be acquired by Mastercard for up to $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent payments, in a deal expected to close by year-end.
Visa's fiscal year closed on September 30, and its fourth-quarter results will be the next opportunity for the company to put stablecoin settlement volume on a formal reporting footing and to name further Visa Direct partners going live.
