Visa is turning itself into a bank for the blockchain economy — and this time the story is not payments, it is lending. The payments giant told CNBC on Tuesday that it will open up more of its settlement data to companies that lend on blockchain networks, pairing Visa’s financial insight with onchain credit infrastructure so that fast-growing stablecoin card businesses can borrow more easily.
By Amir Hassan | September 8, 2026
The move targets a very modern bottleneck: stablecoin-linked card programs — debit and credit cards connected to digital dollars instead of bank accounts — are multiplying quickly, and their operators need capital to grow. Visa’s answer is to let onchain lenders see the kind of settlement data that banks have always used before making a loan.
The Hook: Hypergrowth Needs Money
Stablecoin-linked cards are in hypergrowth mode, Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, told CNBC in an exclusive interview — with new issuers, including stablecoin neobanks and fintech firms, joining the network and launching cards every week. Visa now operates more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs for issuers and program managers, an increase of nearly 200 percent year over year.
Growth at that speed creates a familiar problem: the card companies need working capital, and traditional banks are often reluctant to lend against a business model they do not understand. By sharing settlement data with onchain lenders, Visa is effectively vouching for these businesses with numbers rather than words.
On-Chain Evidence: Smart Contracts Doing the Underwriting
The centerpiece of the announcement is a pilot with a company called Credit Coop, which runs a credit facility for stablecoin-linked card providers using smart contracts — self-executing agreements written into the blockchain that release funds and track repayment automatically. Visa calls it a positive step forward for how onchain credit can come into its network.
- Credit Coop track record — the company says it has processed 2.7 billion USD in total volume through smart contracts, with no borrower ever defaulting
- Six years of onchain lending — nearly 700 billion USD in stablecoin-denominated loans have been sent through onchain lending protocols, according to Visa
- Card growth — more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs, up nearly 200 percent year over year
- Regulatory tailwind — last year’s GENIUS Act established U.S. stablecoin regulation and turbocharged adoption, Sheffield said
To appreciate the scale: 700 billion USD in cumulative onchain loans over six years is real financial infrastructure, not a lab experiment. Most of that activity has stayed inside crypto markets — but Visa’s data offering is designed to bridge it into the mainstream, by making onchain businesses legible to lenders who need cash-flow visibility before extending credit.
The Core Conflict: Can TradFi Trust Blockchain Credit?
The tension in this story is trust. Traditional finance lends against collateral, audited statements, and legal recourse. Onchain lending replaces much of that with transparent transaction history and automated contracts — anyone can inspect the ledger, and the rules execute themselves. Credit Coop’s claim of zero defaults across 2.7 billion USD in volume is impressive, but it was earned during a growth phase, and credit cycles are only truly tested in downturns.
Visa is managing that risk carefully: it is not lending its own balance sheet, but supplying data and partnerships that let specialists like Credit Coop take the credit risk. It is the same playbook the company used for payments — build the rails, let others run the trains. Mastercard, PayPal, and Circle are all investing in competing stablecoin platforms, which turns this into an infrastructure race where the winner earns a toll on every transaction.
Market Implications: Stablecoins Grow Up
Sheffield told CNBC that banks and some of the largest payment companies in the world are now coming to Visa wanting to engage with stablecoins within existing products or to build new ones together — a shift he attributed in large part to the GENIUS Act, which he called a huge turning point. Visa launched its own stablecoin platform in July, covering settlement and card program expansion.
For the broader market, the significance is directional: the infrastructure needed for digital dollars to finance real businesses — not just trading — is being built by the most conservative names in payments. Each new layer of corporate adoption tends to reinforce the case for the underlying networks, Ethereum among them, where most of this activity settles.
The Verdict: What This Means for Your Portfolio
If you hold crypto assets, this is the kind of adoption story that matters more than a week of price charts: a Fortune 500 payments network is wiring blockchain credit into the global card system. If you are simply a customer, expect more stablecoin-linked cards and fintech products to reach your wallet over the next year — with faster approval behind the scenes thanks to onchain data.
The honest caveat: onchain credit is untested in a serious downturn, and zero defaults to date proves momentum, not permanence. Watch whether Visa’s data program survives contact with its first bad quarter. If it does, blockchain-based lending stops being an experiment and becomes plumbing — the kind nobody talks about because everybody uses it.
The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
160 stablecoin card programs, up 200 percent yoy, and now settlement data open to onchain lenders. visa is quietly becoming the biggest crypto company without ever saying it
Sheffield has been hinting at this for a year on CNBC. Lenders underwriting straight off raw settlement data is huge for the small issuers entering now.
small issuers is the underrated part. underwriting used to need a bank data agreement, now its an api call. resets the whole cost floor
an api call replacing a 6 month bank data agreement is the whole story tbh. whoever underwrites off visa settlement data first gets the entire small issuer wave
That cost floor reset is the underrated part. Six month bank data agreements killed half the small issuer market before it started. An API call changes who can even compete here.
tbh i just want one card that pays usdc rewards without bridging anywhere lol. tried two programs, both got delayed twice
same, both programs i tried quietly paused rewards after month two. read the cashback fine print before jumping
200 percent yoy is less impressive when you realize most of those 160 programs have like a few hundred cards each. still early, but visa counting programs instead of volume tells you something
program count over volume is classic framing but even a few hundred cards per program is live repayment data lenders never had. the dataset compounds before the balances do
few hundred cards per program is still 160 programs of live settlement data flowing to lenders. the rails get built before the volume shows
160 programs is also 160 chances for one default stack to reprice the whole thing. first real credit event on swipe data tells us if this underwriting actually holds
exactly, one issuer blowing up and the whole onchain lender pool reprices overnight. bank credit markets take months to adjust, this stuff does it in a block
first real default event on swipe data is the stress test, agreed. but even one clean cycle through a downturn hands onchain lenders a dataset banks took decades to build. somebody goes first
Visa handing settlement data to onchain lenders is quietly huge. Underwriting off actual card swipe data changes the whole credit game.
right, that is the data moat everyone said banks would never share. sheffield keeps shipping real stuff at visa, respect
stablecoin cards in hypergrowth is the least surprising headline ever, the fees on those things print
fees plus float. issuers are basically running a stablecoin money market fund on your card balance lol
the float game gets interesting when the float is programmable. issuers can sweep card balances into t bills by the hour now, no bank treasury desk needed
hourly sweeps into t bills is basically a shadow money market fund with a visa logo. takes regulators a decade to notice stuff like this
fees print until one program eats a default stack and reprices everyone. sheffield is building the underwriting layer before the risk layer imo
The underwriting angle is the real story here. Onchain lenders pricing credit off actual Visa settlement data beats anything the banks offer small issuers today.
beats anything banks offer? the credit coop pilot is what, one facility. wait until an onchain lender eats a default stack off this data and reprices everyone in a week
the credit coop detail is what gets me. smart contracts releasing funds and tracking repayment automatically means defaults get handled in code. no collections department lol
code handles repayment tracking fine but who actually eats the loss when the swipe data was wrong? that is the part no credit coop pilot answers
shadow money market fund that pays better than my actual bank does. regulators will notice right around the trillion mark lol