UK’s largest retail bank Lloyds, Visa complete live stablecoin settlement pilot

Lloyds Banking Group and Visa have completed a live seven-day pilot using stablecoins to settle $750,000 in cross-border US dollar obligations, testing whether blockchain-based settlement can provide faster and more flexible movement of funds between financial institutions. The funds reached Visa in under an hour, including during the weekend.

The trial marked the first stablecoin settlement test between Visa and a major UK banking group and focused specifically on settlement rather than payment execution. Lloyds used USDC purchased through Archax, a UK-regulated digital asset exchange, with the transactions booked through Lloyds’ Corporate Markets branch in Jersey and settled with Visa in the US.

The pilot showed how stablecoins could help address some of the timing constraints of traditional cross-border settlement. Conventional processes can take a day or more when transactions are initiated outside banking hours, while stablecoin settlement can operate around the clock. For banks and businesses, this could provide greater visibility and certainty over incoming funds, improve liquidity management and reduce the amount of capital tied up while transactions are pending.

Lloyds and Visa also tested the ability to settle across different blockchain environments. Lloyds operated its own node on Canton, using the network’s configurable privacy features, while Visa supported settlement on a separate public blockchain. The test demonstrated interoperability between private and public networks and highlighted the potential importance of connecting different blockchain ecosystems as digital asset activity expands across multiple chains.

The pilot is part of Lloyds’ broader exploration of digital assets and tokenised money as potential infrastructure for moving value between businesses and financial institutions. Lloyds Head of Digital Assets Peter Left said the test showed how digital money could make international payments faster, more transparent and flexible, while Visa’s UK and Ireland Group Country Manager Rob Cameron said the pilot demonstrated how stablecoins could operate alongside existing banking infrastructure and give institutions more settlement options.