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Visa and Mastercard are beginning to pay close attention to something that could shake up the way payments work—stablecoins. With more than $255 billion worth of these digital assets already in circulation, the two payment giants are adjusting their strategies to stay ahead.
Stablecoins, which are digital currencies tied to the value of traditional money like the US dollar, allow people to send funds quickly and cheaply. That is where the challenge begins for Visa and Mastercard, who currently make a lot of their money from fees on those same types of transactions.
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Instead of treating this as a threat, both companies are trying to turn it into an opportunity. Jack Forestell from Visa explained that they are already familiar with handling tokenized value. Whether the value sits in a bank account or in a stablecoin, he believes Visa’s infrastructure can connect it all.
“We’ve been tokenizing access to value for a very long time now… Now the value that underlies that token, by and large, is either bank accounts or credit lines, debit and credit cards, but there’s absolutely no reason that can’t be a stablecoin or another cryptocurrency,” said Forestell. He also pointed out that crypto users need a connection to the real world, and that is where Visa comes in—offering the on-ramp to everyday utility.
Mastercard’s Jorn Lambert echoed a similar view. He did not see stablecoins as something that would replace credit cards or fiat payments overnight. Instead, he described them as a door to new possibilities.
“We shouldn’t assume that overnight, stablecoins will replace existing card payments or fiat… We think this is much more about new use cases and new opportunities than about replacing the existing system, especially in remittances, disbursements and business-to-business payments,” said Lambert.
Recent reporting from The Wall Street Journal also adds another layer. Some of the largest US retailers—including Amazon, Walmart, Expedia, and even unnamed airlines—are looking into launching their own stablecoins. By doing so, they aim to avoid the high fees charged by card networks and save billions in the process.
Even though stablecoins are growing fast, the transition will not be instant. However, the fact that some of the biggest retail and tech players are now entering the space shows that the momentum is real.
Visa and Mastercard are not ignoring the shift. Instead of blocking it, they are working out how to fit into the new system. And if they manage that, they might not lose ground—they could simply move into a new lane.