Visa to test USDC settlement capabilities on Solana

Payment giant Visa launched a pilot project, under which merchants will be able to use the USDC stablecoin on the Solana network.

In 2021, the company began testing USDC on Ethereum in partnership with Crypto.com.

Solana was chosen for faster and cheaper transactions relative to the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

Partners in the project are WorldPay and Nuvei. They will act as recipients of USDC from Visa’s account with the stablecoin issuer Circle for interacting with merchants.

«The pilot demonstrates how bringing together USDC with Visa’s innovations is opening the future of payments, commerce, and financial apps, » — said Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire.

Visa’s head of cryptocurrency Kai Sheffield told Fortune in an interview that the processing times for transfers to and from the treasury would remain unchanged.

«At this early stage, we are simply enabling the ability to send or receive USDC instead of a bank transfer, but transfers are not necessarily faster. Over time, I think there is potential to change that,» he explained.

The executive said the company has recognise the role of stablecoins.

«We have reached the point where it has become clear that stablecoins can play a definite role in payments, solving real-world problems,» he explained.

A company spokesperson confirmed the termination of the collaboration with Binance over the issuance of crypto cards amid regulatory problems facing the exchange. Sheffield did not comment on whether he was prepared to fully sever the partnership with the platform.

In April, Visa announced the recruitment of developers for its cryptocurrency division.

Earlier, CEO Alfred Kelly stated that blockchain-based solutions would be integrated into the company’s services to support next-generation payments.