Lloyds and Visa settle $750K cross-border payments via USDC in live trial

Lloyds Banking Group and Visa wrapped up a live trial exploring stablecoin-based settlement for international transactions, testing whether digital dollars could deliver faster and more transparent cross-border payment flows.

The week-long experiment processed $750,000 in US dollar settlement obligations. Lloyds purchased USDC through Archax, a UK-regulated digital asset exchange, to fulfil the settlements.

Funds were booked via Lloyds' Corporate Markets branch in Jersey and transferred to Visa in the United States. Transactions cleared in under an hour, including transfers initiated on weekends — a marked improvement over traditional settlement, which typically takes a day or longer when transactions fall outside standard banking hours.

The pilot examined how 24/7 settlement capability could reshape treasury operations and liquidity management practices for financial institutions.

The companies evaluated whether stablecoin rails could offer clearer visibility into fund status and more predictable arrival times, particularly when transactions occur outside normal banking windows when traditional infrastructure is offline.

The trial also tested settlement across both private and public blockchain environments to assess technical interoperability.

Lloyds operated its own node on Canton, leveraging the network's configurable privacy features. Visa handled settlement on a separate public blockchain. The approach demonstrated that both networks could work together for cross-border settlement, according to Lloyds.

Peter Left, head of Digital Assets at Lloyds Banking Group, said stablecoins could prove especially useful for cross-border payments, where navigating multiple markets, currencies and infrastructure layers introduces delays and complexity.

Settling $750,000 of live payment obligations between Lloyds and Visa using stablecoins has allowed us to move beyond theory and test these capabilities in a real-world setting.

Left noted that digital money could accelerate international payments while improving transparency and flexibility for business clients. Enhanced visibility and certainty around fund movements can transform liquidity management, he added, while blockchain interoperability helps unlock future applications of digital currency at scale.