Visa's stablecoin settlement search turns on four licenses

Visa is back in the market for a stablecoin settlement partner. Its previous one, BVNK, was bought by Mastercard earlier this year. The card network has sent out a request for product, seen by CoinDesk, asking for a firm licensed in the U.S., Canada, the UK and Singapore. The partner would swap and support a range of stablecoins and handle settlement for Open USD (OUSD), the multi-issuer stablecoin initiative fronted by Stripe, Visa and Mastercard.

That geographic requirement narrows the field sharply. Visa wants one settlement partner and one over-the-counter trading partner, each with crypto exchange licenses in all four markets. The RFP calls for swapping across multiple stablecoins, not managing a single token. Visa appears to treat stablecoins as a general-purpose settlement rail, not a feature of one issuer.

The RFP mentions OUSD by name, which places the settlement search inside a broader race among payments giants for stablecoin infrastructure. Stripe's $1.1 billion acquisition of Bridge in late 2024 pushed Visa and Mastercard to evaluate stablecoin shops more urgently, according to CoinDesk. Last month Visa launched its Stablecoin Platform. Banks and fintechs can use it to access, store, redeem and move stablecoins, with OUSD as the initial supported token.

At roughly $300 billion in total capitalization, the stablecoin market is a small slice of global payments. OUSD carries the weight of three major networks. Visa's insistence on multi-regional licensing suggests the settlement layer has to move money across borders and regulators, not inside a single jurisdiction.

The timing carries a quiet urgency. Stablecoin adoption has kept moving even as the broader crypto market stays flat. Visa's move to replace BVNK suggests stablecoin settlement is now a competitive necessity for the card networks. The next partner will have to hold licenses in four countries before it can take on the job.