Rain Joins Visa’s Pilot Program for Stablecoin Settlement

Rain, a global card-issuing platform built for stablecoins, joined Visa’s pilot program for stablecoin settlement.

By fully tokenizing its credit card receivables and transitioning all settlement transactions for its Visa cards to USDC, Rain can now settle with Visa seven days a week, 365 days a year, the companies said in a Thursday (May 1) press release.

The capability enhances Rain’s ability to help its partners — FinTechs and wallets — meet the growing demand for real-time global payments by issuing and using on-chain cards and settling in stablecoins, according to the release.

Rain provides the back-end infrastructure that enables these partners to build and launch stablecoin-linked card programs, per the release.

“By participating in Visa’s USDC settlement program, we are now able to conduct settlement seven days a week, 365 days a year, operating outside of traditional banking hours,” Rain CEO and co-founder Farooq Malik said in the release. “USDC settlement allows us to be more capital efficient — helping to reduce the need for collateral while providing our counterparties the same level of protection.”

Rubail Birwadker, head of growth products and partnerships at Visa, said in the release that blockchain technology and stablecoins are reducing the complexity of moving money across borders.

“Our work with Rain to help bring payments on-chain and enable seven-day settlement is a big step toward helping to simplify global payments,” Birwadker said.

Visa said in September 2023 that it was conducting pilot programs to test the movement of millions of USDC stablecoins between its partners over the Solana and Ethereum blockchain networks.

The company said that by using stablecoins like USDC and global blockchain networks like Solana and Ethereum, it aimed to improve the speed of cross-border settlement and provide a modern option for clients to easily send or receive money from Visa’s treasury.

On Wednesday (April 30), Visa said it partnered with Bridge — a stablecoin orchestration platform owned by Stripe — to launch a card-issuing product that enables cardholders to use their stablecoin balance to make purchases at any merchant location that accepts Visa.

It launched this offering in six countries in Latin America and plans to expand it to Europe, Africa and Asia in the coming months.