Visa has unveiled a new approach to onchain credit, aimed at helping stablecoin linked card programs and fintechs access working capital by pairing onchain lending infrastructure with Visa’s own data.
Onchain lending has become one of the fastest growing segments of digital finance. Since 2020, more than $694 billion in stablecoin denominated loans have moved through onchain lending protocols, according to Visa’s Onchain Analytics Dashboard, creating a global credit market that runs 24/7. But most of that activity has stayed inside crypto markets, without meaningfully reaching the everyday businesses and payment experiences people actually use.
Visa wants to close that gap by combining VisaNet settlement data with onchain credit infrastructure, giving lenders a clearer view of how a program is really operating and making it easier to evaluate financing and extend capital that fits a business’s needs.
“Stablecoins are not only changing how money moves, they’re creating opportunities to rethink the financial infrastructure that supports payments,” said Rubail Birwadker, Global Head of Growth Products and Partnerships at Visa. “We’re seeing how trusted payment data and onchain technologies can work together to unlock new forms of liquidity, helping businesses access capital in ways that are more transparent, programmable and aligned to the speed of modern commerce.”
The announcement builds on Visa’s broader stablecoin strategy, which includes the recent launch of the Visa Stablecoin Platform, enabling stablecoin settlement, expanding stablecoin linked card programs, and helping financial institutions tap into new digital asset capabilities. More than 160 stablecoin linked card programs now run on Visa’s network, with payment volume up nearly 200% year over year, while Visa’s stablecoin settlement volume recently passed a $20 billion annualised run rate, more than 15 times higher than a year ago.
For many emerging payment companies, getting working capital during a period of rapid growth is hard. Traditional financing usually demands significant scale, a long operating history or manual underwriting before credit becomes available. Visa believes blockchain based lending infrastructure, backed by trusted payment data, can ease those constraints while making the process more transparent and efficient.
An early example is Visa’s work with Credit Coop, which provides working capital and settlement financing for stablecoin linked card programs, using smart contracts to automate funding, collateral management and repayment. With customer authorisation, Credit Coop combines Visa settlement data with onchain transaction records to assess credit performance and support automated settlement financing. The model has backed more than $2.5 billion in cumulative financed settlement volume since 2023 with zero defaults across participating facilities, and processed more than 3,000 borrow events and 9,000 repayment events programmatically onchain, leaving a transparent, auditable record of financing activity.
“Payment companies have always had good collateral in their settlement receivables, but no way to show lenders how it performs in real time,” said Chris Walker, Founder and CEO of Credit Coop. “By combining Visa settlement data with onchain infrastructure, we can evaluate live performance, enforce repayment from the settlement flow and extend capital onchain from participating lenders as a program grows.”
Visa sees onchain credit as a natural extension of its broader push to bridge traditional financial infrastructure with emerging digital asset technologies, arguing that combining trusted payment infrastructure, tokenised assets and programmable financial services could support new forms of lending, treasury management and settlement across the global payments ecosystem.
“Visa has spent decades helping make payments more secure, reliable and accessible,” Birwadker added. “As new forms of digital money emerge, we see an opportunity to apply those same principles to the next generation of financial services.”
Digital Trade Outlook’s View: Onchain Lending
What stands out is Visa using its own settlement data, not just blockchain rails, as the underwriting signal for onchain credit. That gives lenders real time visibility into a program’s actual payment performance instead of relying on crypto native metrics alone, and Credit Coop’s zero default record across $2.5 billion in financed volume suggests this hybrid model, trusted payment data plus programmable settlement, could become a real template for how working capital reaches fast growing fintechs.
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