Visa's Stablecoin Strategy: Cards, Settlements, and the Future

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Author: Payment 201

According to Visa’s understanding, today, 70% to 90% of the transaction volume from stablecoin-supported credit cards and debit cards runs on their network, and that number is still steadily growing.

David Rolf leads Visa Ventures— the investment arm of the world’s largest payments network. Its mission is to find standout companies in areas that are strategically crucial to Visa.

About two and a half years ago, stablecoins started becoming one of the focus areas. At that time, the team stopped viewing crypto as a “card product” and began seeing stablecoins as a real solution that can solve real problems.

Since then, Visa has:

Launched 7×24-hour stablecoin settlement

Enabled pre-funding for cross-border fund flows using USDC (via Visa Direct)

Partnered with companies like Rain and Western Union to provide stablecoin-supported cards to remittance recipients who have never been exposed to cryptocurrency

David also broke down the key gaps that still exist today:

Local currency liquidity

B2B payments infrastructure

On-chain programmability

And Visa Ventures hopes to see even more directions for development among builders.

This content was recorded at A Very Stable Conference in 2026 in San Francisco

Guest: David Rolf (Head of Visa Ventures) Host: Drew Rogers

Host (Drew Rogers): I think for a lot of us, somewhere in the two and a half to three years ago range, it kind of “clicked.” When we started seeing stablecoins and realizing that they’re really solving some problems. I think stablecoins have moved way beyond the product-market fit stage.

Host (Narration): David Rolf is the head of Visa Ventures, a Visa organization. He explained how Visa is funding the next wave of global financial infrastructure, and how the world’s largest payments network can run at software speed. Based on our understanding, about 70% to 90% of the transaction volume of stablecoin-supported credit and debit cards is completed on Visa’s network. Broadly speaking, people still need to understand more: stablecoins aren’t for those crazy Degen DeFi players; they’re solving real problems. If I were a builder in this room, I’d be thinking: how do I engage with Visa? How can Visa leverage its network, its scale, its relationships, and billions of account credentials to help me build my business? To learn the full strategy, listen to Stable Dash.

Host: In the city by the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s definitely a city full of wonders.

Host (Drew Rogers): David, thank you for taking the time to join us at A Very Stable Conference in San Francisco. The atmosphere here on site is very energetic. You just hosted a conversation on stage. Who were you interviewing?

David Rolf: Of course. I just hosted a conversation, and the guests were Farooq from Rain and Malcolm from Western Union. They announced a collaboration—essentially a Visa collaboration: funds sent out via Western Union, and the recipients can receive those funds. And those funds aren’t only paid out in cash—they can also be paid directly onto a Visa card issued by Western Union and supported by stablecoins. So I think it’s going to have a big impact for a lot of people.

For those who previously could only claim cash, they can now effectively keep their money within the digital economy system. If they want to, they can also keep the funds in stablecoins. So yes, it’s a really interesting conversation.

Host (Drew Rogers): Yes, there’s a lot of strong energy here today—especially in this area. Visa’s office is just a few blocks away from here. I probably shouldn’t be wrong.

Visa has been involved in this space for a while. In fact, we talked with Cuy earlier as well—back when we made an episode of our podcast with Farooq from Rain, Cuy, and me. We discussed it together. It’s really cool to see Visa continue participating in this discussion. And it’s not only seeing Visa’s innovation on the product side, but also seeing your work on the venture side.

Maybe before we start, you could first introduce your role for us—your responsibilities—and how you view these builders and founders, especially the current landscape in this stablecoin space. For example, the current startup environment, the state of teams, and any gaps there might be. But let’s start with where you sit within this organization.

David Rolf: Of course. I’ve been working at Visa for more than 8 years, and for the past three and a half years I’ve been leading the Venture team. We’re not a traditional risk investment fund in the conventional sense. We certainly want very strong financial returns, but that is not our primary goal. We are Visa employees, and we report to Jack Forestell, our Chief Product and Strategy Officer. So we are highly aligned strategically.

Our mission is to truly find those future winning companies in areas that are very important to Visa. Some are current business partners, some are not, and increasingly many are companies that are active in areas we believe are “very important to Visa.”

We have only one Ventures team responsible for global investing. More than half of our investment portfolio is outside of North America. Stablecoins is one of the areas we focus on because there is a lot of momentum and dynamics in this space. A lot of founders are using this technology to solve real problems. For us, when we see a wave of technology tackling real problems, that’s the stage we’re most interested in and most excited about.

I think stablecoins have moved far beyond the product-market fit stage, but at the same time, people are still exploring what else they can do. So over the past two years, we’ve spent a lot of time understanding this space and talking to many people. We did make some investments, but what we’re really focused on is: what can we learn? How do we help these companies? How do we connect them to other teams inside Visa? How do we introduce them to other venture investors who are a good fit for them? That’s really interesting.

Host (Drew Rogers): On that point, I have a question. This stablecoin moment—and the kind of ability you described to “really solve problems”—is strategically important for Visa’s business. You also mentioned you’ve been doing this for three years. From your personal perspective, how has your understanding of stablecoins changed over these three years? When did stablecoins start becoming a true strategic priority? How do you view it now, and what’s changed compared to three years ago?

David Rolf: From my personal perspective—and also from Visa’s perspective—we actually had crypto teams pretty early on. And we also went through many waves of crypto cards, like credit cards, debit cards, and so on. So we were involved from the earliest stages. But those actually weren’t the real investment opportunities.

The real “aha” moment happened roughly two and a half to three years ago, when we started seeing stablecoins and realizing that they’re solving real problems. Especially certain things—frankly, Visa itself is deeply involved, such as the movement of funds. We understand fund flows very well. The question was: how do you accelerate the flow of money?

So for me, that’s been a process of continuous learning—continuous conversations with people, trying to understand this space. At the same time, I’m also thinking: as Visa, where can we provide help? Where can we participate? What can we do?

If I look at some of the product capabilities we later rolled out—for example, stablecoin settlement—that means achieving 7×24-hour settlement. That means a transaction that might previously have settled on Friday night at 8 p.m. can now settle on Friday night at 9 p.m., instead of waiting until Monday. This is effectively accelerating fund flows, and that’s important to us, and also important to our partners.

Stablecoin settlement is one aspect. We’re using it as well. We’re not just partners and investors—we’re also using it. For example, we accept USDC as settlement funds for pre-funding cross-border fund flows via the Visa Direct network.

Of course, there are also stablecoin-supported payments, such as stablecoin-supported Visa cards, debit cards, and credit cards. Based on our understanding, about 70% to 90% of the transaction volume for stablecoin-supported credit and debit cards is on our network. So throughout this journey, it’s been continuous learning, continuous conversations, while also connecting different resources and teams.

Host (Drew Rogers): For card companies like Rain, we really like learning about teams like that. Their collaboration with Visa—combining stablecoin settlement with cards—is very elegant. For a lot of builders here who are working on infrastructure and assets, a combination like Visa and Rain can really greatly boost and accelerate transaction volume.

So taking a different angle, what gaps, problems, pain points, or more broadly, opportunities do you think still exist in the market today? When you go back inside the team to think about strategy, are there any areas where you feel, “This should be where entrepreneurs focus”? What does that feel like right now?

David Rolf: I can answer from a few angles.

First, I think there still needs to be more education overall. A lot of people still think stablecoins are for “crazy Degen DeFi players.” But in reality, they’re solving real problems. Just like the Rain and Western Union case we talked about earlier, these remittance recipients aren’t crypto-native users at all. It’s just using a technology to solve the problem.

If I look at some issues that still exist—like on/off ramps, meaning local currency liquidity. If you consider the so-called “stablecoin sandwich” structure: when you need to convert stablecoins into local currency, many countries actually don’t have enough local currency liquidity. So now there are many companies trying to solve the liquidity problem. That’s a key factor that helps adoption.

The underlying technology itself is very good. I think the problem is more at the adoption layer.

Also, there are complexities—for example, you can send stablecoins across different blockchains. So how do you manage them? How do you ensure that you’re sending funds to the correct chain and the correct address? Those issues still exist today. Even though some people are working on them, they’re still at a “basic infrastructure” stage. For example, “fat finger error,” which everyone hopes the system can eliminate.

Another thing I’d mention is the ability to carry information along with payments. Stablecoins are one way to move funds, but fund movement usually comes with a lot of information. I think in B2B payments, there’s a huge opportunity here. Stablecoins can play a role, but it requires a lot more maturity—and it requires many things to be built, such as connecting with accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) systems. All of this is being pushed forward, but if you want to achieve a qualitative leap, these are the key directions.

Host (Drew Rogers): Some people describe Visa as an “information transport network,” or a protocol that transmits state and information between different participants. What’s your take?

If you combine this with stablecoins, what information do you think is valuable? For example, payer information, geographical information, or something else?

David Rolf: I think that’s a very good description. I agree with that. Part of Visa’s work really is about information transmission. Of course, we’re also transferring money in practice, and we’re also transmitting fund-related information between partner banks.

I think there’s a lot of information that can indeed be attached during the movement of funds.

But at the same time, stablecoins also have some things you “lose.” For example, someone might ask: will all payments use this in the future? Maybe, but like cash and checks, they each have their downsides. Once the money is sent out, it’s gone. Like a wire transfer.

I think stablecoins are a very good way to transfer funds. It might not always be the cheapest, but its advantage is “software speed.”

And I also think there’s a very big opportunity in programmability. Because it’s on-chain—when you combine it with other systems, like triggering automatic settlement or automatically executing certain conditions, it becomes very interesting. I know a lot of people are already doing that.

But the focus I mentioned just now is more in B2B scenarios—passing information along with payments. That needs to be developed and built.

Host (Drew Rogers): So in B2B scenarios, if you imagine an “ideal state,” what use cases currently have the most traction? Is it payout, cash management, or something else?

David Rolf: I think it’s still fairly early, so it’s hard to draw a conclusion.

Yes, there are already some companies using stablecoins on the payout track, especially those with widely distributed geographies.

I’ve also heard a really interesting saying: if you work at a globally distributed stablecoin company but you aren’t using stablecoins to get paid, that’s kind of weird. So I think that’s the state of early adopters.

But to truly become mainstream, you still need a lot of infrastructure work, and a lot of compliance work.

Especially in cross-border scenarios, I think the most core use case is cross-border fund flows. The key point is: when funds enter or leave the fiat currency system, that segment is extremely important—and you must be regulated locally.

So overall, it’s still an early stage. But we’re very excited about the use cases that people are trying and exploring. There are also many people inside Visa who think about these questions every day, so we’re very happy to connect these resources.

Host (Drew Rogers): This is a really interesting playing field. One last question.

If you were facing a room full of stablecoin builders—many are veterans in the industry, entrepreneurs, infrastructure builders, and investors—what would you most want them to know? About Visa, or about Visa Ventures—what would you most want them to understand?

David Rolf: I’d say the energy here is really strong. I was up on the second floor just now—the room over there was already full, and there were people outside too, and the weather in San Francisco is great today.

If it comes down to Visa, I think the most important thing is to understand that we are “enablers.” We are a network.

We’ll look for ways to leverage the assets we’ve already built to help companies succeed. This applies to big companies, and it also applies to startups.

Inside Visa, there are many different touchpoints. We have thousands of people who wake up every day thinking: how do we use the capabilities we’ve built to help our partners succeed?

So if you’re a builder in this room, you should be thinking: how can Visa help you? Based on our network, our scale, our relationships, and hundreds of millions of terminal devices, and billions of account credentials—what can we do for you?

I encourage everyone to think about that question, find the right people, and reach out proactively.

When I talk to a lot of companies, I ask them: what do you want Visa to do to help you?

We have a lot of assets. We’re global. We want to partner with the companies that we can help succeed.

Host (Drew Rogers): That’s fantastic. I’m really glad you’re in this space, and thank you so much for your time. We’ll talk again next time.

David Rolf: Thank you. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Host: Have fun.

Host (Narration): This is our exclusive conversation with David Rolf (Visa). The city by the Golden Gate Bridge. A city truly full of wonders.