Visa and Aquanow Partner on Stablecoin Settlement Across CEMEA Region

Visa has partnered with Aquanow to provide stablecoin settlement capabilities across the Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) region.

The integration of Visa’s technology stack and Aquanow’s global digital asset infrastructure will allow Visa’s network of issuers and acquirers to settle transactions using approved stablecoins, the companies said in a press release emailed to PYMNTS.

This capability will enable users to reduce costs, operational friction and settlement times, according to the release.

“Our partnership with Aquanow is another key step in modernizing the back-end rails of payments, reducing reliance on traditional systems with multiple intermediaries, and preparing institutions for the future of money movement,” Godfrey Sullivan, head of product and solutions for CEMEA at Visa, said in the release.

Aquanow CEO Phil Sham said in the release: “Together, Visa and Aquanow are unlocking new ways for institutions to participate in the digital economy, leveraging stablecoin technology to settle with the speed and transparency of the internet.”

When announcing in July that it planned to support more stablecoins and blockchains on its settlement platform, Visa said its crypto and treasury infrastructure capabilities already facilitated settlement in more than 25 fiat currencies worldwide.

“Visa is building a multicoin and multichain foundation to help meet the needs of our partners worldwide,” Rubail Birwadker, global head of growth products and strategic partnerships at Visa, said at the time in a press release. “We believe that when stablecoins are trusted, scalable and interoperable, they can fundamentally transform how money moves around the world.”

Visa’s ongoing investments and bets on stablecoins were among the bigger themes of Visa’s third quarter earnings call, PYMNTS reported at the time.

“Consumers and businesses are using stablecoins to save money in U.S. dollars, but they also want to spend that money, and there’s no better way to do that than with a Visa crypto card,” Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said during the July 29 call. “We are piloting and partnering with stablecoin companies … as we build out our stablecoin settlement stack … we are working to streamline treasury operations, improve liquidity management and enable quick and more cost-effective cross-border strategies.”