Stablecoins Were Supposed to Bypass the Card Schemes. Instead, the Schemes are Positioning Themselves as the Operating System

Author: Alessandro Hatami

Stablecoins emerged with a disruptive promise: move money instantly, globally and cheaply without relying on the banks, card schemes and correspondent networks that dominate conventional payments. For Visa and Mastercard, that promise was not an abstract challenge. It went directly to the role they have played for decades as the trusted networks through which banks, merchants and consumers connect.

Intriguingly, their response has not been to sullenly defend the old model from the sidelines. Both groups are trying to make themselves indispensable to the next one. They are embedding themselves within the infrastructure of stablecoin payments, supplying the wallets, controls, interoperability, security and settlement services that institutions need before programmable money can operate at scale.

This shift comes as stablecoins begin to move from crypto trading infrastructure into regulated institutional payments. Banks, for their part, are under growing pressure to offer tokenised services without taking on uncontrolled technology or compliance risk.

Visa’s new Stablecoin Platform is the clearest recent example. Revealed in July and initially available in beta, it gives banks, fintechs and crypto businesses a Visa-managed environment in which they can mint, redeem, hold and transfer stablecoins. It includes wallet infrastructure, approval policies, audit logs, passkeys and transfer allow-lists, and connects on-chain money with Visa’s existing settlement, treasury and payment services.

Mastercard is pursuing the same opportunity from a different angle. It is expanding on-chain settlement across its own network using regulated stablecoins including Circle’s USDC, Paxos-issued PYUSD, USDG and USDP, Ripple’s RLUSD and SoFi’s SoFiUSD. It plans to support these assets across several blockchains while preserving the fraud safeguards, dispute processes and security standards attached to its existing infrastructure.

There is an important proviso to this development. This is not a simple story of Visa launching or controlling a stablecoin of its own, or of either card scheme single-handedly owning the next payments layer. Visa’s platform will initially support Open USD, which is being developed through Open Standard, an independent initiative supported by  close to 200 organisations. Mastercard is also a participant, as are American Express, banks, fintechs, payment providers and digital-asset businesses.

This consortium structure is a safeguard. Open Standard says Open USD will be governed collaboratively, with independent management intended to serve participating businesses collectively.

So the shift is subtler than one heavyweight incumbent trying to wrap its brand around an independent crypto asset. It is a broader attempt to build shared infrastructure, supported by businesses that might otherwise have created competing coins, wallets and closed payment loops.

Visa and Mastercard are not making identical bets. Visa’s platform starts with a managed environment and direct access to Open USD, while Mastercard is emphasising choice across multiple stablecoins and blockchains. Nevertheless, the implicit ambition is clear. Both card schemes are aiming to connect different forms of money, institutions and commercial transactions.

The Coin is Not The Real Prize

Much of the stablecoin debate has focused on which issuer will win, which blockchain will dominate or whether a bank should create its own token. These questions are all salient, but they risk mistaking an intangible asset for a concrete business model.

Money does not become useful merely because it has been tokenised. Institutions still need to establish who owns a wallet, who may approve a transfer, how assets are safeguarded, how suspicious transactions are detected and how records are reconciled with existing ledgers. They need liquidity across currencies and networks, and ways to handle mistakes, fraud, sanctions, regulation and customer disputes.

These are precisely the areas where established payment networks have spent decades building reach and trust. Stablecoins can reduce friction in moving and settling value, particularly across borders and outside banking hours. But the closer they move towards mainstream commerce, the greater the demand for controls and protections that early crypto models treated as unnecessary intermediaries.

The same controls that make these platforms attractive to institutions may also become the mechanisms through which incumbents preserve their gatekeeping power.

The strategic contest is therefore shifting. It is no longer principally about whether blockchain rails replace card rails. It is about who controls the orchestration layer between them.

A network connecting bank deposits, stablecoins, tokenised deposits and central bank digital currencies could become more important than one tied to a single instrument. Visa and Mastercard are positioning themselves not only as card schemes, but as trusted gateways for many types of value.

The Choice Facing Banks

Banks should, of course, welcome infrastructure that reduces the time and cost of entering the market. But there is a less comfortable consequence: lower-cost stablecoin rails will put pressure on the lucrative fees banks charge for cross-border, and in some markets domestic, payments. A managed platform can still let a bank test demand and launch services without making an irreversible technology bet.

The danger is that speed becomes dependency. A bank that delegates custody, wallet management, transaction controls, interoperability and settlement connectivity to an external network may discover that it has surrendered the most valuable parts of the new payment stack.

That dependency could carry real commercial consequences. A bank may launch quickly through a scheme-operated wallet and settlement layer, then find that pricing, transaction data, compliance rules and network connections are increasingly shaped by the platform provider. The more of the stack it outsources, the less leverage it retains over the service.

That does not mean every institution should issue a stablecoin or build a proprietary blockchain. Most should not. It means boards need to decide which capabilities are strategic. Customer identity, transaction data, liquidity management, product design and the rules governing programmable payments should not be outsourced by default merely because a packaged route is available.

The future-proofed approach is likely to be modular. Banks can use scheme and consortium infrastructure for reach and common standards, while retaining control of customer relationships, data, risk appetite and connections to other networks. They should also consider tokenised deposits, which offer some stablecoin programmability while preserving commercial bank money.

Europe’s Answer is Already Taking Shape

The geopolitical implications are equally important. Open USD is aiming at more than another payment token. SEPA created common standards that make euro payments between participating bank accounts across Europe straightforward. A DLT-based dollar stablecoin can go further: anyone able to acquire it and access a compatible wallet could, in principle, transfer dollar-denominated value directly to another holder, across borders and around the clock. For the holder, it starts to resemble a non-interest-bearing digital dollar balance that can be passed instantly between compatible wallets.

That could deepen the dollar’s role from dominant reserve and invoicing currency to a directly accessible global payment rail. Around 98 per cent of the value of stablecoins is already denominated in US dollars, according to the Bank for International Settlements. Businesses may welcome that reach; governments may be less comfortable with payments becoming dependent on dollar assets and global private networks, even where governance is shared through a consortium.

Europe is not ignoring this challenge. Its response has several layers. The retail digital euro, intended partly to strengthen European payment autonomy, will be tested with 36 banks and non-bank payment providers from the second half of 2027. It is not a euro stablecoin, but the pilot will give European providers practical experience of integrating a new form of digital money and could make it easier for the private sector to develop a complementary open euro stablecoin proposition.

For tokenised markets, Europe’s response is already taking shape through the Eurosystem’s two-track programme for settling transactions in central bank money: Pontes and Appia. Pontes, due to launch in the third quarter of 2026, will link private DLT platforms to the Eurosystem’s TARGET Services so transactions can settle in central bank money. Appia is the longer-term programme to shape an integrated European tokenised financial ecosystem, with a blueprint due in 2028. Together, they address precisely the settlement layer that Visa and Mastercard are also trying to make strategically important.

But public infrastructure is only part of the answer. Europe still needs private euro-denominated stablecoins and tokenised deposits that can sit on top of it and interoperate across networks. The retail digital euro, wholesale central bank settlement and private digital money are different layers of the same emerging system. Europe needs all three to connect rather than substitute for one another.

The UK faces a similar question. The Bank of England and FCA are building a regime intended to allow sterling-denominated stablecoins to operate at scale, with final Bank rules due by the end of 2026 and regulated stablecoins expected from 2027. That gives the UK scope to develop a credible sterling payment layer rather than allow dollar stablecoins to become the default for programmable payments.

Final Thought: Retaining Relevance

The stablecoin revolution is not unfolding as a clean replacement of old rails by new ones. It is becoming a contest over who integrates, governs and monetises a more complex payments system.

Open Standard shows that the next phase may be built through broad alliances rather than a winner-takes-all coin. But Visa’s platform shows how shared assets can be incorporated into an incumbent’s managed services. Similarly, Mastercard’s approach shows that supporting multiple coins and chains can itself become a network proposition.

Stablecoins were supposed to remove the payment giants from the transaction. Instead, the payment giants are redesigning themselves around stablecoins. If banks and policymakers do not make deliberate choices now, the next generation of programmable money may simply reproduce the old dependency in a new technical form.

The strategic question is no longer which coin wins, but who controls the identity, data, governance and settlement layers around it.

By Alessandro Hatami, Managing Partner, Pacemakers

Contributor opinion. Pacemakers had no commercial relationship with CFI.co at the time of publication.