Hong Kong-based fintech Reap and Visa have announced a strategic collaboration to launch stablecoin-linked Visa credit card programs across more than 100 markets globally, running on Reap’s card issuance infrastructure and in compliance with local regulations in each market.
The move extends Reap’s existing Visa card-issuing footprint beyond Asia and Latin America into EMEA and Africa, and makes Reap the first fintech in Asia to partner with Visa on enabling global stablecoin credit card issuing at scale. Reap’s infrastructure handles the card network authorization, processing, compliance frameworks, and day-to-day operations, so partner businesses can focus on building products rather than managing the underlying rails.
The timing lines up with a broader shift in payments. Stablecoin-linked card programs are currently growing at a 106% compound annual growth rate, against just 5% for peer-to-peer payments, according to Artemis Research. Visa, for its part, is now processing stablecoin settlement volume at a $20 billion annual run rate, up 15-fold year-on-year (YoY), across more than 160 stablecoin card programs worldwide.
“What we’ve always wanted is for stablecoins to be as usable and accessible for businesses as any other payment method. We’re proud to collaborate with Visa as our leading go-to-market partner for stablecoin solutions, supporting our international expansion and sharing insights on bringing global card programs to market. Stablecoins opened the door, but the real unlock is the compliant infrastructure pathway that this creates for any company, anywhere in the world, to issue cards and scale through a single partnership”, said Guo.
“Stablecoin-linked card programs are entering a new stage and phase of scale and adoption. The collaboration with Reap reflects the strong momentum we are seeing across the payments ecosystem. Visa is partnering with innovators like Reap to bring trusted and secure payment infrastructure to more markets and use cases, enabling these businesses to move faster while reaching the global acceptance and reliability they need to grow”, stated Stephen Karpin, President at Visa Asia Pacific.
Through this infrastructure, partner businesses can fund and manage card spending directly in stablecoins, use stablecoins as collateral, let cardholders repay balances in stablecoins, and run cross-border corporate spend with compliance built in, while still spending at Visa’s 175 million-plus merchant locations worldwide.
Reap is also a settlement partner for Visa’s stablecoin settlement program in Asia Pacific, settling its own payment obligations to Visa directly in stablecoins. That structure allows settlement to happen over a blockchain rather than through traditional banking hours, cutting the weekend and holiday delays that have long shaped how card networks manage liquidity, and reducing how much issuers need to pre-fund their accounts. Looking ahead, Reap and Visa also plan to explore agentic commerce, examining how AI agents might execute authenticated payments within limits set by users, while keeping security and compliance intact.
For everyday businesses and consumers, this kind of partnership does not change much at the checkout counter, rather than what happens behind the scene. In principle, a Visa card funded by stablecoins should work the same way at any of Visa’s merchant locations just like a regular card. The real shift is happening on the other side, for the fintechs and platforms building these financial products. A company in Africa or Latin America wanting to launch a stablecoin-linked card no longer needs to build out settlement and compliance from the ground up. That part is now Reap and Visa’s problem to solve, not theirs.
Herald View: This deal is not really about stablecoins competing with Visa, but about Visa deciding stablecoins are worth building around rather than working against. A $20 billion settlement run rate and 15x year-on-year growth are hard numbers to ignore, and partnering with infrastructure players like Reap lets Visa extend its network into stablecoin rails without taking on the compliance burden market by market itself. The real test isn’t whether the card programs launch across 100 markets, it’s whether stablecoin funding stays a niche feature for crypto-native businesses or becomes something an ordinary corporate treasury team reaches for without thinking twice.