Visa Wants to Power the Next Generation of Digital Dollars
Hey Payments Fanatic!
Not long ago, stablecoins were mostly a crypto story. Today, they're becoming a banking story.
Visa has just unveiled a platform that allows banks and FinTechs to issue, manage, and settle their own stablecoins through Visa's infrastructure. In other words, Visa doesn't just want to move digital dollars anymore. It wants to provide the operating system behind them.
That's a very different position to occupy.
If more financial institutions decide to launch their own stablecoins over the next few years, the winners won't necessarily be the companies issuing the tokens. They'll be the companies providing the infrastructure every issuer depends on.
Visa clearly wants to be one of them.
Further down, you'll also find new research showing why finance leaders are rushing to invest in AI, and why most organizations still aren't ready to deploy it at scale despite the enthusiasm.
See what else is shaping Payments. 👇 See you on Monday!
Cheers,
INSIGHTS
📰 Airwallex research finds AI ambitions outpacing finance teams’ readiness. A Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Airwallex found that 74% of finance leaders rank AI as a top priority, while 90% plan to increase AI investment over the next year. However, fragmented data, integration challenges, and limited AI expertise continue to slow broader adoption across finance workflows. Read the full report here
NEWS
🌍 Wero is now available on Airwallex, enabling merchants worldwide to accept instant bank payments from European shoppers without requiring a European entity. The integration offers lower processing costs, same-day settlement, and support for features including one-click and recurring payments.
🇮🇱 Airwallex to grow Israel operations. The FinTech plans to use Israel as a strategic hub for product development and innovation while supporting its continued global growth and AI-driven financial platform strategy. Keep reading
🇬🇧 Wollette and Yapily partner to power automated wallet funding through open banking. The integration enables customers to automatically fund their wallets from their bank accounts, supporting seamless account-to-account payments for online and in-store purchases while reducing payment friction for merchants.
🇰🇪 BoC partners Scale to launch virtual prepaid Mastercard for Africa’s creators. Powered by Scale, the programme provides the card layer within the BoC platform, making funds easier to access, manage and spend. The programme is issued on the Mastercard network, with UBA Kenya acting as regulated sponsor bank.
🌎 Visa has introduced the Visa Stablecoin Platform, enabling banks and FinTechs to mint, move, manage, and settle stablecoins through Visa's existing payment and treasury infrastructure. The platform is designed to simplify stablecoin adoption across Visa's network, bringing digital asset capabilities into traditional payment workflows.
🇳🇱 iDEAL-to-Wero migration reaches a major milestone in the Netherlands. The next phase will expand Wero's capabilities beyond online payments to include peer-to-peer, in-store, and cross-border payment services across participating European markets.
🇺🇸 Ramp launches AI Token Spend Controls. AI Token Spend Management gives companies one dashboard to see and control spending across AI providers, weekly briefings on usage trends and ways to be more efficient, and real-time controls and alerts to stop overruns.
🇪🇺 BitPay secures a MiCA license to expand cryptocurrency & stablecoin payments across the EU. Using a unified regulatory framework, merchants and partners can now tap into crypto payment acceptance, stablecoin-denominated payments, and cross-border payment use cases.
🇵🇭 Billease profit jumps as revenue tops $151M in 2025. According to its audited financial results, the company’s gross loan book increased 77% to $212.1 million, while total assets reached $233.5 million. Billease said it funded its expansion through operating profits instead of raising new external capital.
🇦🇺 iGoDirect appoints Greg Duncan as Chief Executive Officer of Cards & Payments. As CEO, he will lead the continued expansion of iGoDirect’s Cards & Payments division, focusing on strengthening issuer and partner relationships, driving innovation and enhancing customer outcomes across the payments ecosystem.
🇸🇬 Adyen appoints Gary Yang as Asia-Pacific President to lead the next phase of regional growth. Based in Singapore, Gary will oversee the region’s commercial growth and operations, succeeding Warren Hayashi, who will retire at the end of 2026.
🇦🇪 Spreedly launches a standalone payment vault to securely store and manage payment credentials independently of a payment service provider. The solution supports credential portability across more than 100 payment providers, helping businesses reduce vendor lock-in while improving flexibility, tokenization, and payment optimization.
🇨🇭 AMINA becomes the first regulated bank to integrate Mesh. The integration embeds Mesh’s verified deposit technology directly into AMINA’s online banking platform. This allows clients to verify wallet ownership and deposit stablecoins and digital assets in a single, streamlined flow across more than 300 wallet providers.
🇺🇸 MoonPay acquires Glide in an all-equity deal to expand crypto deposits infrastructure. Glide’s specialty is crypto deposits infrastructure, the plumbing that helps users and businesses move fiat currency into crypto wallets. By folding Glide into its stack, MoonPay gains deeper capabilities in bank and fiat integrations.
🇬🇧 Pay.UK bolsters Board. Pay.UK has appointed Alison Berryman, Chief Operating Officer at Monzo, Matthijs Boon, Chief Financial Officer at Equals Group, and Pranay Ahluwalia, Chief Financial Officer at Bank of Ireland UK, as Industry Non-Executive Directors. The appointments strengthen the board with expertise in digital banking, payments, finance, and technology as Pay.UK continues to modernize its payment infrastructure.
🇬🇧 Sokin is launching Sokin Checkout and Payment Links for UK businesses. The two products give businesses and finance teams a single place to collect customer payments by card and other methods, with funds settling directly into the company’s Sokin account with no separate integration to build or maintain.
🌍 SCRYPT expands stablecoin settlement network across four East African markets. By enabling direct settlement corridors for local African currencies into stablecoins, businesses can move from local currency to stablecoin settlement in a single licensed transaction, without first sourcing rationed bank dollars.
Want your message in front of 100.000+ FinTech fanatics, founders, investors, and operators?
Shoot me a message on LinkedIn or send me an e-mail.
Comments ()