Visa seeks new partner for stablecoin settlement after Mastercard snags BVNK: Report

Visa is searching for a new stablecoin settlement partner with regulatory licenses covering the US, Canada, UK and Singapore, as competition among major payments companies to build stablecoin infrastructure intensifies, CoinDesk reported Tuesday.

The move follows Mastercard’s acquisition of BVNK, the stablecoin infrastructure firm that previously handled settlement services for Visa. Mastercard completed the acquisition earlier this month.

According to Visa’s request for product (RFP), the prospective partner must be able to support and exchange multiple stablecoins and provide settlement services for Open Standard (Open USD).

Led by Zach Abrams, co-founder of Bridge, which is owned by Stripe, the stablecoin project has support from more than 140 companies, including BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, Google, Coinbase and DBS, and is expected to go live later this year.

Visa says the requirement for licensing across several major markets has narrowed the field of potential partners. It is looking for a firm that can act as both a settlement provider and OTC partner while maintaining crypto exchange licenses in all four jurisdictions.

Stablecoins are emerging as a key area of competition among traditional payments giants. The market is now worth about $286 billion, according to CoinGecko.

Visa has begun building more of its own stablecoin infrastructure. Last month, it launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform, which provides banks, fintech companies and payment providers with tools to access, store, redeem and move stablecoins. Open USD is the platform’s first supported token.