Visa Direct has moved USDC stablecoin prefunding from pilot programs into commercial production through payments infrastructure provider Inyo Global, giving eligible payment companies a way to fund certain international payouts around the clock through Inyo’s existing application programming interfaces.
Visa announced Thursday that Inyo had become the first Visa Direct processor to make the service available to clients. The launch brings a production use case to Visa’s stablecoin strategy after a series of tests during 2025 involving USDC and EURC, two stablecoins issued by Circle Internet Group.
The service is aimed at businesses that need to maintain funding for cross-border disbursements outside conventional banking and foreign-exchange operating hours. Rather than waiting for standard funding windows, an eligible payment company could use USDC to prefund payments through Inyo, subject to Visa’s eligibility requirements and geographic availability.
Inyo serves money transmitters, fintech companies, banks and payment businesses. Its platform combines customer onboarding, fraud and compliance tools, payment acceptance and domestic and international payout capabilities. The company routes payouts through Visa Direct in more than 180 countries and territories, according to Visa.
Funding changes, rather than recipient payments
The commercial launch focuses on the funding side of a payment. A business sending money internationally often needs to hold balances or arrange funding in advance across multiple currencies and payment corridors. Stablecoin prefunding is designed to give that business another means of making funds available for a payout program.
Recipients do not necessarily receive USDC under this arrangement. Visa’s initial stablecoin prefunding pilot, launched in September 2025, examined how businesses could use USDC and EURC to fund payment obligations. The model was distinct from a later Visa Direct pilot that allowed eligible recipients to choose stablecoin payouts.
That distinction shapes the immediate use case. Payment companies could use a blockchain-based dollar token as a settlement or liquidity tool behind the scenes while continuing to offer recipients conventional payout options, such as a bank deposit, card payment or other locally supported method.
For firms managing time-sensitive disbursements, the potential attraction is access to funding outside the weekday schedules that govern many bank and foreign-exchange processes. A remittance provider, marketplace or business-payments company could face demand during a weekend or public holiday while parts of the traditional banking system are closed.
Visa and Lloyds recently tested that operational premise in a seven-day USDC trial. The companies said earlier this month that they settled $750,000 in payment obligations, with funds reaching Visa in less than an hour, including over a weekend. The test was limited in scale, but it offered a concrete example of the settlement timing Visa is seeking to bring into payment workflows.
Inyo provides the production route
Inyo’s role gives Visa a commercially available distribution channel rather than a standalone proof of concept. Eligible clients will access the stablecoin prefunding option through the same APIs they already use for other Inyo payment services, reducing the need to build a separate integration solely for USDC funding.
APIs are software connections that allow a payment company’s systems to send instructions and receive data from a provider’s platform. Using existing integrations could make the service easier to add for companies already using Inyo for compliance checks, payment acceptance or international payouts.
The launch also places compliance and operational controls at the center of the product. Inyo’s customer base includes regulated money transmitters and banks, while stablecoin availability remains dependent on the jurisdictions, counterparties and payment routes involved. Visa said access would be limited by eligibility and geography, meaning the service will not automatically be available across every Visa Direct corridor.
Visa Direct is Visa’s money-movement network, used by financial institutions and payment providers for domestic and international disbursements. Visa said the network handled 12.6 billion transactions during its 2025 fiscal year. Adding a stablecoin funding route does not change how every transaction on that network settles, but it creates another liquidity option for participating businesses.
A progression from pilots to commercial products
Visa began exploring stablecoin funding for cross-border payments in September 2025, when it introduced pilots involving USDC and euro-denominated EURC. The company later expanded its work in November 2025 with a USDC payout pilot, allowing eligible recipients to receive the stablecoin directly where supported.
The two tracks address separate parts of a payments chain. Prefunding gives the sender or payment provider a way to finance outgoing transfers. Payouts give an end recipient a method to receive value. Visa’s work with Inyo brings the first model into production, while direct stablecoin receipt remains associated with its pilot activity.
Visa also said in August that it was working with zerohash, a digital-asset infrastructure company, to support stablecoin funding and payout capabilities through Visa Direct. Visa identified zerohash as a technology and regulatory infrastructure provider for that effort. Inyo’s commercial rollout suggests Visa is pursuing multiple provider relationships as it develops stablecoin-based payment services.
USDC is a dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Circle, whose shares trade publicly in the United States under the ticker CRCL. The token is designed to maintain a value of roughly one U.S. dollar and is widely used across crypto trading, decentralized finance and payments applications.
The market data included with the announcement showed USDC up 0.02%, a movement consistent with its dollar peg, while Circle shares were listed up 9.33%. Neither figure establishes a direct market response to Visa’s announcement.
For payment companies, the practical test will be whether stablecoin prefunding reduces the amount of capital they need to keep parked across international corridors while meeting compliance, conversion and payout requirements. Inyo’s launch provides a live route for testing that proposition with eligible clients, moving Visa’s stablecoin effort beyond controlled trials and into day-to-day payment operations.
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