Rain, a global card issuing platform built for stablecoins, has joined Visa’s pilot program for stablecoin settlement. Rain has fully tokenized its credit card receivables and has transitioned all settlement transactions for its Visa cards to USDC
The company provides backend infrastructure – APIs, compliance layers and settlement logic – that enables fintechs and wallets to build and launch stablecoin-linked card programs. As demand for real-time, global payments grows, Rain said it is seeing strong momentum from partners looking to issue and use on-chain cards and settle in stablecoins.
A proprietary settlement stack brings all authorization logic and settlement on-chain. That stack allows for card transactions on the Visa network to be interoperable with stablecoins across multiple blockchains. When a user pays with a Rain-issued Visa card, Visa settles with the merchant acquirer as usual.
Rain has also fully tokenized its credit card receivables, enabling more efficient capital management and transparency across the system. These capabilities help fintechs go to market faster with new products, while giving consumers access to digital-first, globally interoperable payment experiences.
This week, Rain also unveiled closed-loop credit card receivable financing utilizing stablecoins. Rain works with a network of capital partners, borrowing stablecoins to facilitate network settlement for credit card receivables. By borrowing from and programmatically repaying lenders, Rain reduced the total cost of capital for consumer and B2B credit programs while providing lenders access to superior collateral and programmatic repayments powered by smart contracts. The company believes this can unlock credit access for users in underdeveloped financial markets while unlocking significant operational and capital efficiencies.
“By participating in Visa’s USDC settlement program, we are now able to conduct settlement seven days a week, 365 days a year, operating outside of traditional banking hours. USDC settlement allows us to be more capital efficient by helping to reduce the need for collateral while providing our counterparties the same level of protection. This sets a new standard for issuers and further enhances digital asset utility,” said Farooq Malik, CEO and co-founder of Rain.
“Moving money across borders has always been complex, but blockchain technology and stablecoins are helping change that,” said Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s head of growth products and partnerships. “Our work with (them) to help bring payments on-chain and enable seven-day settlement is a big step toward helping to simplify global payments.”
The company said it continues to explore new ways to enhance the utility of stablecoins, such as its asset-agnostic settlement stack and blockchain permissioning, which together enable credit to exist entirely on-chain.
A Visa principal member, Rain enables seamless payment solutions at more than 150 million Visa-accepting merchant locations worldwide.