Visa just updated the numbers on its stablecoin business, and they're striking: the annualized settlement run rate has hit $20 billion, up from $3.5 billion in November last year. That's nearly 15x growth in under a year — and it's not a one-off spike. The figure was already at $7 billion back in April, meaning it's almost tripled again since then.
The engine behind the jump is Visa's stablecoin-linked card programs, now numbering more than 160 across over 40 countries. Payment volume on those programs is up almost 200% year over year. A partnership with Bridge extended card acceptance to 100-plus countries in March, and South Korea's Shinhan Financial Group started testing the format in August.
There's a less obvious piece of this story: where card issuers get the cash to cover spending before Visa's actual settlement lands. That's where Credit Coop comes in — a platform that lends stablecoins against a card program's future settlement receivables, with a smart contract called Spigot automatically sizing the credit line and pulling repayment straight from Visa's daily settlement files. Since 2023, more than $2.5 billion has moved through the facility across 3,000-plus loans, with zero defaults, and borrowing costs for participants have dropped by roughly 30%. One issuer, Rain, has financed $2 billion in volume through the platform over the same stretch — also without a single missed payment.
Money is flowing into the niche from other directions too: travel card issuer Karta raised $140 million in June, including a credit facility from Community Investment Management, after reporting tenfold growth in 2025.
Set against Visa's overall business — trillions of dollars in ordinary card transactions every year — $20 billion is still a rounding error. But this corner of the market, card issuance for fintechs, is where stablecoins are starting to function less like a trading asset and more like actual payment plumbing, backed by lending infrastructure that didn't exist ten months ago.
