Overview
- Mastercard completed its acquisition of BVNK on August 3, 2026, taking control of technology that had powered Visa’s around‑the‑clock stablecoin settlement.
- Documents reported on August 18 show Visa has issued a confidential RFP that narrows its search to one settlement provider and one OTC partner with exchange licences in the US, Canada, the UK and Singapore.
- The RFP asks the partner to support multi‑stablecoin swaps, provide continuous 24/7 settlement and handle clearing for the Open USD project rather than just regional coverages.
- Visa launched its Visa Stablecoin Platform in July with Open USD as the initial token and separately announced a ZeroHash tie‑up on August 5 that appears not to meet the four‑market licence requirement.
- The move reflects a race by card networks to build native stablecoin rails inside payments infrastructure as a roughly $300 billion stablecoin market pushes demand for faster, cheaper cross‑border settlement that affects merchants, banks and treasury operations.