British Banking Giant Tests Stablecoin With Visa, Avoiding Weekend Delays

In its first stablecoin settlement pilot with Visa, Lloyds Banking Group used USDC to meet a total of $750,000 in payment obligations over seven days, with funds reaching Visa in under an hour, including over the weekend.

Lloyds, one of the UK’s largest retail banking groups, tested the use of stablecoins in real transactions. According to a post by Wu Blockchain on October 1, the bank purchased the USDC used in the pilot through Archax, a regulated digital asset exchange.

Over the seven-day pilot, payment obligations totaling $750,000 were met using this method. The pilot’s notable result was the timing: Funds reached Visa in under an hour, including for transactions made over the weekend.

Stablecoins used in the settlement process between banks

The pilot focused on the settlement stage, when financial institutions meet obligations to one another by transferring funds as a result of their payment activities. Lloyds and Visa used stablecoins alongside existing settlement processes to assess speed, transparency, and operational performance.

A series of real transactions were carried out during the pilot. This allowed the partners to test in practice how USDC could be used to transfer funds between institutions and how much flexibility it could provide for cross-border transactions.

The concrete finding from Lloyds’ first completed trial with Visa was that fund transfers were completed in under an hour, even over the weekend.