Overview
- The agreement announced Thursday between Visa and Anchorage allows eligible Visa partners to use Western Union’s USDPT stablecoin to settle obligations on VisaNet.
- USDPT is issued and custodied by Anchorage Digital Bank on Solana and is advertised as fully backed by U.S. dollar reserves and redeemable one‑for‑one.
- Visa framed the change as an expansion of its multi‑chain stablecoin settlement program, which has surpassed an annualized run rate of more than $20 billion.
- Anchorage said the deal advances its plan to act as a settlement bank by combining regulated issuance, institutional custody and its Atlas off‑exchange settlement rails to speed reconciliation and improve capital efficiency.
- Firms say faster, round‑the‑clock settlement could reduce the need for prefunded local accounts in cross‑border flows, but the companies did not promise consumer fee cuts and gave no public timetable for wider token rollout.