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Visa Lets Businesses Fund Cross-Border Payouts With USDC Around the Clock

Payment firms that send money abroad have long had to plan around the opening hours of banks.

From now on, some of them will not have to.

Visa has taken stablecoin prefunding for its Visa Direct service out of testing and into live commercial use, allowing businesses to back international payouts with USDC in near real time.

The company confirmed the change on 15 October 2026, with the payments infrastructure provider Inyo Global named as the first firm to offer it.

Why Does Prefunding Matter for Money Transfers?

Remittance companies and other payout businesses must hold money in settlement networks before they can send funds across borders.

When demand jumps, such as over a weekend, they need to top up those balances quickly.

Bank-based replenishment can take hours or longer, which leaves businesses waiting on a funding window before they can move money.

Visa's new option is designed to remove that wait.

A business using Inyo's platform can send USDC to fund a Visa Direct payout almost immediately, and the recipient still receives local currency.

Visa describes the feature as a liquidity tool for payment businesses rather than a product for consumers.

The round-the-clock availability applies only to the funding side.

How fast money reaches the recipient still depends on the receiving financial institution, the country involved and verification checks.

Who Is Inyo Global and What Does It Offer?

Inyo Global, based in San Francisco, is the first company to build the capability into its platform.

Through one connection, its clients can onboard users, manage fraud and compliance, accept payments and send domestic and international payouts to more than 180 countries, all powered by Visa Direct.

Its customers include money transmitters, fintechs, banks and payment businesses.

Robson Dantas, Inyo's chief product and technology officer and co-founder, said:

"We're giving the money transmitters, fintechs and payment companies we serve a new way to fund their payouts, one that is available around the clock."

Clients use the same Inyo APIs they already work with.

How Did Visa Get From Pilot to Production?

The launch follows two trials Visa introduced in 2025 through Visa Direct.

One tested prefunding, in which clients supplied USDC to support their own Visa Direct activity.

The other tested payouts settled to recipients on stablecoin rails.

The prefunding trial is the one that has now gone live, making it the first stablecoin product Visa has put into commercial use on the Visa Direct network.

Vira Platonova, global head of Visa Direct, said:

"The next chapter for stablecoins is adoption."

She added that years of partner pilots are now turning into live implementations.

Cuy Sheffield, head of Visa Crypto Labs, wrote on X that it was "great to see Visa Direct stablecoin pre-funding in production."

The company has been building toward this for some time.

It has added settlement partners to its Visa Direct stablecoin network and linked on-chain lending to stablecoin card financing.

In August 2026, Visa and Zero Hash said they would bring stablecoin prefunding and payouts into Visa Direct, and the following month Visa moved to connect VisaNet data with on-chain lending to fund stablecoin card programmes.

How Big Is Visa's Stablecoin Business Already?

The figures disclosed in September show the scale of the groundwork.

Visa said it was processing an annualised US$20 billion in stablecoin-related card settlement volume, more than 15 times the level a year earlier.

It also supports more than 160 stablecoin-linked card products, and payment volume on them has nearly doubled over the same period.

What Are Rivals Doing, and How Did Investors React?

Visa is not alone in this area.

Mastercard is developing its own stablecoin payment features, and American Express has looked at similar options.

Circle, the issuer of USDC, offers a redemption process that keeps one USDC equal to one US dollar.

Visa shares traded about 2 per cent higher on 15 October 2026, close to their 52-week high, and outperformed the wider financial sector on a day when markets were weaker after hotter-than-expected inflation data and renewed worries about interest rate rises.

The company is due to report earnings on 27 October 2026.

Analysts expect the company to earn US$3.44 for every share, up from US$2.98 a year earlier, with revenue of US$12.08 billion, compared with US$10.72 billion in the same period last year.

The stock holds a Buy rating, with an average price forecast of US$425.60.

What Is Still Unknown About the Rollout?

Several details remain unclear.

Visa did not say which countries or payment routes are covered, noting that availability depends on client eligibility and location.

It also gave no estimate of the volume it expects to pass through the new channel, and no date for when other partners will join.

Visa did say it is working with clients and partners to bring stablecoin features to more money movement uses around the world, which suggests more firms will follow Inyo.

Platonova is due to speak on stablecoins and global money movement at several sessions during Money20/20 USA this week.

Do Consumers Want Stablecoins Too?

Public appetite appears to depend on protection.

Visa's own survey work found that 56 per cent of Americans would use stablecoins if bank-grade fraud protection and deposit insurance were in place, while only 36 per cent said they would without those safeguards.

The gap shows how much potential demand exists compared with what today's infrastructure can offer, and the new launch gives the sector a working example from a major payment network of dollar-backed tokens being used for everyday settlement rather than speculation.