Visa launches VSP, allowing banks to directly connect to stablecoins
According to a (Fortune) report, global payments giant Visa announced on July 16 the launch of its Visa Stablecoin Platform (VSP), integrating stablecoin minting, custody, transfers, and redemptions into a single enterprise-grade platform. The target customers include financial institutions, fintech companies, payment providers, and crypto-native businesses. The service’s first wave supports Open USD issued under Open Standard, enabling institutional clients to use a Visa-managed environment to move fiat funds onto the blockchain and incorporate stablecoins into payment, settlement, and treasury management processes.
Visa says stablecoins have opened a new layer of programmable money, but for most institutions, the biggest challenge lies in real-world operations, including wallet management, internal control processes, security rules, linking bank accounts, and managing inflows and outflows of funds.
VSP therefore provides Wallet-as-a-Service infrastructure, blockchain connectivity, and Open USD minting and burning channels, enabling customers to introduce on-chain assets alongside existing Visa networks and tools.
Security and internal controls as the selling points—stablecoins enter enterprise work flows
The design focus of VSP is whether enterprises can truly embed stablecoins into everyday work flows. The platform supports a dual-approval process—after one user initiates a sensitive operation, it must be confirmed by another authorized user. At the same time, it provides complete audit trails, secure transfer access keys, and transfer whitelists to help organizations control the risk of moving funds. These features are especially important for banks and large payment providers because on-chain transfers are fast; if internal controls are insufficient, user errors or cybersecurity incidents may rapidly escalate.
Visa also emphasizes that VSP can interoperate with its existing stablecoin settlement, stablecoin-linked card offerings, and cross-border fund transfer services. For existing Visa customers, this means enterprises can add stablecoins into the familiar clearing, treasury, and currency services framework without needing to build a complete on-chain operating team from scratch. VSP is currently initially open to a subset of customers for beta testing, and Visa will decide on future rollout based on the results.
Open USD launches first, challenging $USDC’s existing footprint
Open USD is a dollar stablecoin recently launched by Open Standard. Its backers include major institutions such as Visa, BlackRock, Alphabet, and Coinbase. Open Standard’s strategy is to reduce friction in stablecoin issuance and distribution, focusing on eliminating minting and redemption fees, and returning most reserve yield to distribution partners. If this model succeeds, it could change the stablecoin industry’s long-standing structure in which issuers have controlled the main revenue.
Visa’s first support for Open USD also shifts market attention to Circle and $USDC. $USDC is currently the world’s second-largest stablecoin and has built its business model over the long term on a compliance image, institutional customers, and reserve yields. After Visa layers Open USD into its own payments and enterprise services stack, banks, fintech platforms, and crypto exchanges may have more stablecoin options in the future.
Related news: More than 140 big players team up to push stablecoin OUSD! Taking on USDT and USDC, Circle’s stock price drops 17%
Payment giants shift to on-chain—stablecoin competition enters a new phase
Visa has previously supported some partner use of stablecoin settlement, and it has also launched crypto-linked cards and blockchain cross-border payment services. The launch of VSP means Visa is expanding from a single-function capability into a platform-based service, aiming to become an infrastructure provider for banks and enterprises to onboard stablecoins.
For Visa, this is an extension of its core payments-network business: the traditional card acquirer processes authorization, clearing, and settlement between merchants and banks, while a stablecoin platform extends the same capabilities to on-chain fund flows.
Competition in the stablecoin market is heating up. Tether, Circle, PayPal, Ripple, and new stablecoins supported by banks and payment companies are all vying for cross-border payments, treasury management, on-chain settlement, and tokenized finance use cases. Visa has chosen to use the VSP services for merchant-side requirements and is launching support for Open USD first, indicating that major payment companies are treating stablecoins as future financial infrastructure rather than as a supplementary tool in the crypto trading market.
As more banks and fintech enter beta testing, the market will watch whether Open USD can open distribution channels through the Visa network, and whether it will create real competition for existing stablecoins such as $USDC and $USDT.
“Visa launches an enterprise stablecoin platform! First supports Open USD—security and internal controls are the selling points.” This article was first published on “Crypto City.”