The news
On September 8, 2026, Visa (V) announced onchain lending backed by its own settlement data, letting lenders extend working capital to stablecoin-linked card programs by combining VisaNet records with blockchain-based lending and smart contracts that automate funding and repayment.
According to Visa, lenders can assess a card program's credit performance using live settlement information together with its onchain transaction history. Smart contracts handle funding, collateral management and repayment. Visa framed the offering as part of its broader stablecoin strategy rather than a standalone product with its own launch date.
Visa pointed to lender Credit Coop as an early example. Visa said Credit Coop has supported more than $2.5 billion in cumulative financed settlement volume since 2023 with zero defaults across participating facilities, processing more than 3,000 borrow events and more than 9,000 repayments onchain. Those figures come from Visa and were not independently verified.
The company also disclosed scale figures for its stablecoin business: more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs on its network, payment volume on those programs up nearly 200% year over year, and stablecoin settlement at an annualized run rate of more than $20 billion, which Visa said is up more than 15 times year over year. Visa cited more than $694 billion in stablecoin-denominated loans sent through onchain lending protocols since 2020.
A Visa spokesperson told Payments Dive by email, for a September 11 report, that to start the service is limited to a pilot based in North America; Visa's own release does not mention a pilot or a geography. In the September 8 release, Rubail Birwadker, Visa's global head of growth products and partnerships, said trusted payment data and onchain technology could "unlock new forms of liquidity" and help businesses access capital.
Several details were missing from the announcement. Visa did not publish pricing, name lenders other than Credit Coop, say which blockchains or lending protocols are involved, or give a date for wider availability. In the release, Credit Coop CEO Chris Walker pointed to payment companies' settlement receivables as collateral, but Visa did not say what other collateral, if any, card programs must post, or whether in stablecoins, cash or both.
The numbers
- Stablecoin-linked card programs on Visa's network
- 160+
- Annualized stablecoin settlement run rate
- $20 billion+
- Year-over-year payment volume growth on those programs
- Nearly 200%
- Credit Coop cumulative financed settlement volume since 2023 (per Visa)
- $2.5 billion+
- Stablecoin loans via onchain protocols since 2020 (cited by Visa)
- $694 billion+
Why CEOs should care
For CFOs of fintechs and card program managers, Visa is pitching this as working capital and settlement financing, the cash a growing program needs to keep up with card spending. Credit underwritten on live network data could become a new funding source. Before signing up, ask who the lender is, what collateral is posted and in what asset, what triggers a smart contract to liquidate or freeze funds, which jurisdiction's law governs, and how the facility behaves if a stablecoin loses its peg.
Treasurers at banks and nonbank lenders should read this as a new underwriting data source. Visa is offering a view into a borrower's settlement flows and pitches it as an alternative to traditional financing that often requires scale, operating history or manual underwriting before credit is available. Ask how data is shared, whether borrowers consent to it, and how errors are corrected. Risk committees should note that zero defaults since 2023 reflects a young, fast-growing market that has not been tested through a severe credit cycle.
Boards should also track the regulatory calendar. In an August 17 proposed rulemaking open for public comment, Treasury said January 18, 2027 is the expected effective date of the GENIUS Act, the federal law that sets U.S. stablecoin rules, and that from then payment stablecoin issuers generally will need a federal or state license. Programs built on stablecoins whose issuers fail to qualify could face disruption, which lenders will price in.
The bigger picture
Card networks are racing to make stablecoins look like ordinary payment rails with ordinary credit around them. Payments Dive noted that Visa has joined Mastercard, Stripe and Coinbase in supporting the Open USD stablecoin initiative, and that Mastercard's BVNK unit partnered with Marqeta on stablecoin-backed cards. Money transfer firm MoneyGram launched a stablecoin-backed Visa card in Colombia with partner Rain, Payments Dive reported on September 17. For Visa, owning the settlement data that lenders rely on is a way to stay central even as value moves onto blockchains. The rules around those rails are still being written: on September 24, the Federal Reserve proposed reserve, capital and risk management standards for stablecoin issuers it supervises, adding to Treasury's August 17 GENIUS Act proposed rulemaking.
What’s next
Watch whether Visa names more lenders, expands the pilot beyond North America and publishes terms such as pricing and collateral rules. The first real test will come when a stablecoin card program runs into trouble and the smart contracts, not a loan officer, decide what happens next.
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