Will Stablecoins Disintermediate the Traditional Cross-Border Settlement Model? Visa's expanded partnership with digital asset firm Aquanow across the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA) regions signals an aggressive move to leverage approved stablecoins, such as USDC, to slash transaction costs and reduce multi-day settlement times in the global payments ecosystem.
Key Takeaways
Strategic Expansion: Visa has expanded its USDC stablecoin settlement capabilities across the CEMEA region via a partnership with the digital asset platform, Aquanow.
Operational Efficiency: The integration aims to eliminate friction, reduce costs, and enable 365-day, near-instant settlement, directly challenging the multi-day latency of legacy correspondent banking.
Scaling Volume: The firm’s existing stablecoin settlement pilot has already achieved an annualized run rate of over $2.5 billion, demonstrating proven institutional demand.
Disintermediation Threat: This adoption by a payments giant accelerates the broader trend toward digital currency infrastructure, positioning stablecoins as a key disintermediation layer for back-end money movement.
Competitive Edge: The move fortifies Visa's market position against competitors like Mastercard, which are also investing heavily in stablecoin and tokenization solutions.
The Architecture of Accelerated Settlement
The announcement confirms that the integration of Aquanow's digital asset infrastructure with Visa's core technology stack will enable financial institutions (issuers and acquirers) within the CEMEA network to fulfill their settlement obligations using approved stablecoins like USDC. This technical pivot directly addresses the archaic inefficiencies inherent in traditional cross-border settlement.
For decades, the system has relied on a correspondent banking network—a chain of intermediaries that acts as a financial equivalent of passing a baton across time zones. Each intermediary introduces latency, operational risk, and fees. This new stablecoin rail bypasses this complex chain, leveraging blockchain's innate ability to provide finality in minutes, not days.
"By harnessing the power of stablecoins and pairing them with our trusted global technology, we are enabling financial institutions in CEMEA to experience faster and simpler settlements," stated Godfrey Sullivan, Head of Product and Solutions for CEMEA at Visa, as per the official announcement. This sentiment underscores a focus on modernizing the back-end rails to achieve superior working capital management for their partners.
Data Points and Market Implications
Visa's stablecoin journey is not nascent; its pilot program, which began enabling clients to settle in USDC in 2023, has rapidly scaled to an annualized run rate of over $2.5 billion in settlement volume (Source:
From an investor perspective, this is a clear signal of an increasing competitive moat. While Visa’s core business model remains asset-light, integrating stablecoin rails creates a powerful new mechanism for recurring settlement fees and expands the addressable market by attracting fintechs and neobanks seeking cheaper, 24/7 cross-border flows.
Competitive Dynamics and the Future of Money Movement
This partnership arrives as competitors also accelerate their digital asset strategies. Mastercard, for example, is actively supporting stablecoin-based transactions and has joined networks like the Paxos-backed Global Dollar Network. The race among payment giants is no longer about whether to adopt crypto infrastructure, but how quickly to integrate it at an institutional scale.
The stablecoin, in this context, functions as a liquidity bridge—a highly liquid, always-on, digital equivalent of cash. As Phil Sham, CEO of Aquanow, noted, they are "unlocking new ways for institutions to participate in the digital economy, leveraging stablecoin technology to settle with the speed and transparency of the internet." This vision is one where B2B cross-border settlement becomes the first major domino to fall, leading eventually to broader B2C and P2P adoption as regulatory clarity matures. The trend is clear: stablecoins are evolving from purely crypto-native instruments into critical tools for enterprise-level financial infrastructure.
Conclusion: Preparing for the Digital-Native Treasury
Visa’s aggressive move with Aquanow is a high-conviction bet on the structural future of global finance. It signals that multi-billion dollar payments networks view stablecoins not as a speculative instrument, but as a superior infrastructural layer for institutional money movement. Investors and financial institutions must recognize this shift: the operational benefits of compressed settlement cycles—improving liquidity, strengthening inventory management, and simplifying treasury processes—will become a non-negotiable standard. The implicit message is that the traditional, batch-processed, T+2 settlement world is being rapidly replaced by a real-time, 365-day digital reality. Staying informed on this digital transformation is no longer advisory—it is foundational to strategic planning.
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