Visa, Mastercard, tech firms and banking institutions are all exploring ways of using blockchain technology for payments and settlement.
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Payment company Visa expanded stablecoin offerings on its settlement platform by adding support for Global Dollar (), PayPal USD (), Euro Coin () and two new blockchain networks, Stellar and Avalanche.
The integration allows users to send and receive stablecoin payments through the supported blockchain networks or convert their balances to traditional fiat currency, Visa said in a on Thursday.
Visa already offered support to Circle’s USD Coin () stablecoin, while supported networks for transfer and settlement include Ethereum, Solana and the newly added chains.
Institutional interest in stablecoins is growing following the in the United States, as tech firms, banks and even major retailers signal plans to enter the stablecoin market and take a piece of the pie.
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Visa faces competition from a growing list of financial institutions that are issuing stablecoins or integrating stablecoin services for their clients.
This includes stablecoin issuers, which are disruptive to legacy financial systems, payment processing companies have acknowledged.
Payments and credit card company Mastercard, Visa’s direct competitor, is collaborating with crypto companies to integrate crypto payments and has already .
In June, reports emerged that retail giant Walmart and tech company Amazon, which also doubles as an online marketplace, were exploring the possibility of . Both companies do business internationally and would benefit from the reduced transaction fees and near-instant settlement times for cross-border commerce.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has repeatedly and equip the bank with stablecoin payment rails.
More recently, financial services company and banking giant to allow customers the ability to link their Chase accounts directly to Coinbase and convert rewards points to USDC.
Earlier this year, representatives for Mastercard that stablecoins directly threaten the payment processor business model and are a disruptive technology.
In June, Noam Hurwitz, head of engineering at payments infrastructure company Alchemy, told Cointelegraph that onchain stablecoin transaction volume has surpassed that of Visa and Mastercard and is becoming the “.
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