On Sept. 8, 2026, Visa announced it is combining VisaNet settlement data with onchain lending infrastructure to help stablecoin-linked card programs and fintechs obtain working capital. The model pairs daily settlement files with onchain transaction records so authorized lenders can assess credit performance and automate financing for Visa onchain credit stablecoin cards. The early example cited by Visa is Credit Coop, which the company says has supported more than $2.5 billion in cumulative financed settlement volume since 2023 with zero defaults across participating facilities. Visa also said Credit Coop processed more than 3,000 borrow events and 9,000 repayment events programmatically onchain.
Rubail Birwadker, SVP & Head of Growth at Visa, framed the move in a press statement: “Stablecoins are not only changing how money moves, they’re creating opportunities to rethink the financial infrastructure that supports payments.” Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto, told CNBC that “onchain credit can start to come into our network.” The pitch is direct: take settlement data that already exists on VisaNet, mirror it onchain, and let lenders underwrite against real, dated transaction flow rather than founder balance sheets.
Visa onchain credit stablecoin cards: Credit Coop, Rain, and the numbers behind the headline
The “$2.5 billion in cumulative financed settlement volume” figure is doing a lot of work. Deep analysis from theindustryspread.com notes that roughly $2 billion of that $2.5 billion total came from a single borrower: Rain, the stablecoin-linked card issuer. Rain’s interest paid is reported at approximately $1.58 million on $2 billion financed, an implied cost of about 0.08%. That is a signature of capital drawn for days, not months, consistent with working-capital lines that turn over weekly.
For context, the remaining ~$500 million is distributed across other unnamed participating facilities, per the same analysis. Zero-default status across the program is one of the headline claims, but Visa’s own footnotes flag the figure as “to be reconfirmed by Credit Coop immediately prior to publication.” Treat the cumulative numbers as directional, not audited.
Network scale: 160 programs, 200% YoY volume
Visa said there are now more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs on its network. Payment volume on those programs is up nearly 200% year over year. Visa’s stablecoin settlement annualized run rate recently surpassed $20 billion, up more than 15x year over year. That $20 billion figure is also flagged in Visa’s footnotes as “to be confirmed with Investor Relations,” so the multiplier and run rate should be read as company-stated rather than third-party verified.
Even with those caveats, the directional read is that stablecoin-linked card flows are a small but fast-growing slice of Visa’s overall volume. The 15x run-rate growth is the cleaner headline number, and the 200% YoY uplift on program-level volume is the more useful proxy for activity because it is anchored to a base of named programs.
How the plumbing actually works
The operational model is straightforward. VisaNet produces daily settlement files describing what each program processed, in what currency, and to whom. Those files are paired with onchain transaction records for the same program. An authorized lender can then underwrite against the combined data set: did this program’s settlement volume hold up? Did repayments clear onchain? Is drawdown concentrated in a few issuers or spread out?
Repayment and disbursement are automated onchain, which is how Credit Coop processed 3,000 borrow events and 9,000 repayment events “programmatically.” That is the part that matters for working-capital use cases: the lender does not need to chase a borrower for a wire, and the borrower does not need to manually draw or repay a facility. Capital moves with settlement flow.
Just-in-time funding is the next phase
Visa’s next phase, per the announcement, is just-in-time funding: a daily settlement file triggers same-day disbursement. That is a meaningful step up from a weekly or monthly draw. If a stablecoin card program sees a Friday settlement spike and needs liquidity to fund Monday authorization volume, same-day disbursement against that Friday file is the product.
For lenders, the underwriting question changes from “can this program pay us back over six months?” to “did the settlement file clear and is the onchain record consistent?” That is a much shorter credit decision, and it is the structural reason working-capital cost can compress to the ~0.08% Rain paid on $2 billion.
What’s still unclear
No participating lenders were named in Visa’s announcement. The $2.5 billion cumulative volume figure and the zero-default claim both carry Visa footnotes asking for reconfirmation. The $20 billion annualized stablecoin settlement run rate is similarly flagged. None of this is fraud; it is the standard pre-publication drift between a press release and a 10-Q, but it is worth holding the headline numbers loosely until the audited equivalents land.
The structural story, though, is consistent across the caveats. Settlement files are dated, counterparty-verified payment data. Onchain records are public, append-only transaction logs. Combining the two gives lenders a credit signal that is harder to forge than a startup’s bank statement. For Visa onchain credit stablecoin cards, that combination is the product, and the next phase is shortening the gap between a settlement file landing and a disbursement clearing to a single business day.
Source: https://investor.visa.com/news/news-details/2026/Visa-Brings-Onchain-Lending-into-Everyday-Payments/default.aspx