Payments giant Visa is testing the impact of stablecoins in improving instant international payments for gig-economy workers, freelancers, and social media creators. A pilot test for these stablecoin payouts was announced by Visa on Wednesday, November 12. It will be part of the Visa Direct service – that was launched in 2015 and was intended to facilitate quick, real-time payments. During the pilot, the USDC stablecoin will be used to test these payout transactions.
Visa, in its announcement post cited its own 2025 Creator Economy Report to claim that majority content creators prefer using digital payment methods for receiving payments faster. Through this service, the payouts to creators will be facilitated from one wallet to another, rather than the funds first being sent to bank accounts or traditional card numbers.
Explaining the development Visa said, “In September, Visa Direct announced its stablecoin pre-funding pilot: letting businesses fund Visa Direct payouts using stablecoins instead of only fiat, a back-end treasury innovation. Today’s pilot enables payouts to end recipients, like consumers, in stablecoins -putting digital dollars directly in recipients’ wallets.”
Visa highlighted that the service could significantly reduce cross-border lags in facilitating transfers, eliminating the restriction of banking hours. The logs of these transfers would also be recorded permanently and immutably on blockchain.
“Consistent, USD-pegged value helps establish predictability (and give) flexible access for consumers to hold, spend, or convert their stablecoins,” the cards giant explained.
International business and influencers collaborating on projects with Visa-compatible stablecoin wallets will be able to use this feature to process fund transfers.
For the pilot trial, Visa said, it is in the process of selecting and onboarding partners from the U.S. After the trials, a more elaborate rollout of this stablecoin-focussed payment feature is slated for 2026.
The company has been increasing its experiments with stablecoin services. Last month, for instance, Visa initiated tests to see if stablecoins can really be efficient cash alternatives for treasury operations. After having already partnered with Circle for USDC and a euro-backed EURC stablecoin, the company added Stellar and Avalanche to its infrastructure growing beyond Ethereum and Solana and creating a quad-chain ecosystem.