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Stablecoins Power Visa’s Cross-Border Push with Yellow Card Partnership

Payment and Card

Business Honor
24 June, 2025

Visa partners with Yellow Card to trial stablecoin cross-border payments in high-growth regions

Visa has teamed up with Yellow Card which is a prominent pan-African stablecoin infrastructure provider. This partnership is made in an effort to test stablecoin-powered cross-border payments in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (CEMEA). Through the partnership, connectivity with Visa Direct will be tested, allowing companies to send transfers backed by stablecoin straight to customers' bank or card-linked accounts.

By lowering cost with increasing the speed and providing round-the-clock transfer availability this alliance allows companies to store US dollars in stablecoins and settle payments more effectively across borders. The program is a component of Visa's larger plan to use digital assets to update its money movement infrastructure. One major benefit is expected to be Sub-Saharan Africa.

Between 2022 and 2024, the region consistently received more than $500 billion in stablecoin remittances each month. Nigeria is one of the leading markets for USDT adoption on exchanges, while stablecoin-powered low-value transactions increased 180% year over year in Ethiopia.

According to Yellow Card CEO Chris Maurice, traditional payment companies are now more concerned with how quickly they can adopt a stablecoin strategy than with whether they need one. Godfrey Sullivan of Visa said that by 2025, money transfer organizations will need a stablecoin strategy and Visa is committed to providing the resources needed to facilitate that transition.

The Visa-Yellow Card agreement shows how quickly stablecoins have been institutionalized. Stablecoins, especially USD-backed assets like USDC and USDT, are increasingly being utilized in underdeveloped countries to settle business-to-business transactions in order to prevent fluctuations in foreign exchange rates and enable cheap transfers.