Visa has begun offering stablecoin settlement for U.S. financial institutions using Circle’s USDC on the Solana blockchain, enabling select partners to settle VisaNet obligations in fiat-backed tokens. As of November 30, 2025, Visa reports that monthly stablecoin settlement volumes have surpassed an annualized run rate of $3.5 billion, signaling that tokenized rails are already handling meaningful flows.
How Visa’s USDC settlement rail operates
Visa’s program allows participating issuer and acquirer banks to settle obligations on VisaNet using USDC tokens issued by Circle, with transaction finality recorded directly on the Solana blockchain as part of the stablecoin settlement workflow. Stablecoin settlement in this context refers to the transfer of final funds between institutions using a digital asset designed to maintain a stable value relative to fiat, and early adopters such as Cross River Bank and Lead Bank are among the first to route settlement flows through the new scheme.
The initiative changes operational timing by extending settlement windows to seven days a week instead of limiting activity to a five-business-day cycle, and Visa’s selection of Solana is explicitly tied to high throughput and low transaction costs that are intended to support near-instant transfers and higher-volume flows than legacy payment rails. By shifting to this model, participating institutions can align treasury operations with continuous settlement capabilities, reducing traditional timing frictions that historically constrained clearing and reconciliation to banking hours and business days.
Visa has also created a Global Stablecoins Advisory Practice within its Consulting & Analytics division to support banks, fintechs and merchants with market sizing, technical integration and training, and this dedicated practice is designed to provide strategic guidance and implementation support as institutions evaluate whether to route treasury and payment flows through tokenized settlement rails. The advisory function positions Visa not just as an infrastructure provider but as a consultative partner in translating stablecoin settlement into concrete operational designs.
The launch takes place against a broader market backdrop in which the stablecoin sector now exceeds an estimated $250–$300 billion in market capitalization, and Visa has already scaled related products globally, running more than 130 stablecoin-linked card issuing programs across over 40 countries alongside a USDC settlement pilot first conducted in 2023. By pairing a live settlement product with an advisory arm, Visa is explicitly positioning itself to accelerate institutional adoption while helping clients manage the operational complexity of integrating stablecoin rails.
At the same time, Visa’s move reduces settlement latency and can improve intraday liquidity for participating treasuries, but it also concentrates new operational dependencies on Circle as the USDC issuer, on Solana as the chosen ledger and on the robustness of token custody and on-chain plumbing that underpins the settlement process. These concentration points, together with evolving regulatory scrutiny of stablecoins and crypto infrastructure, are the principal risks that banks, compliance teams and treasury functions must assess before onboarding Visa’s USDC settlement service.
Visa’s USDC settlement product therefore establishes a new rails option for institutional clearing and liquidity management, with an initial run-rate milestone already reached by late November 2025, and the combination of live settlement flows and a Global Stablecoins Advisory Practice signals a deliberate effort to embed tokenized settlement into mainstream financial operations.
