Visa launches a managed stablecoin platform

Visa launched a platform allowing institutions and fintechs to mint, redeem, hold and transfer stablecoins within an environment Visa operates. It launches with support for Open USD, a dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by the Open Standard consortium.

The product is infrastructure for institutional issuance and handling rather than a competing token, though it places Visa alongside Circle, Tether and Ripple in the same market.

The launch coincides with growing institutional interest in tokenised dollars, and follows a period in which several large payment networks have added stablecoin settlement options rather than building their own currencies.

Visa's established business is largely the authorisation and compliance layer around settlement rather than settlement itself. The platform extends that layer to stablecoin issuance.