Visa Veteran Says Stablecoin Adoption Hinges on Invisible Payments Infrastructure

Payments veteran Michael Batuev is betting that the next phase of global finance won’t be won by louder technology—but by technology that becomes effectively invisible. Now leading global payments at onchain financial infrastructure firm WeFi, Batuev argues that mainstream adoption of stablecoin spending and self-custody hinges less on new breakthroughs and more on removing friction until users no longer notice the rails beneath them.

In an interview published Friday ET, Batuev traced his career-long fascination with systems that “work so well no one thinks about them,” drawing a parallel between early internet wonder—global information accessible instantly—and the hidden complexity behind a tap-to-pay transaction. A single card tap, he noted, triggers thousands of processes spanning issuing banks, acquirers, payment networks, and regulators, while the user sees only a confirmation screen. For Batuev, that asymmetry is the point: mature infrastructure disappears into the background.

Batuev’s perspective was shaped by a progression through traditional finance and global payments. Raised in Russia’s Far East—a region historically positioned between Europe and Asia—he said he learned early how differently national financial systems are constructed. He later worked at Alfa-Bank, where he described a culture of seeking new operating models rather than refining legacy processes, before joining Visa where he observed how global-scale reliability is built and maintained.

“Inside Visa, you understand how complex the global financial system is, and how decisive stability, scalability, and security really are,” he said, framing those traits as prerequisites for any new payment paradigm to reach mass acceptance.

During his time at Visa, from 2015 to 2019, the strategic priorities in the Russia business centered on non-contact payments, growing mobile payment usage, and expanding real-time transfers—trends that later spread broadly across regions. In parallel, blockchain began to move from experimentation toward real-world utility. Batuev recalled early skepticism that treated blockchain mainly as an alternative financial system, with risk concerns around crypto assets dominating the narrative. He sees that arc as familiar, akin to historical transitions such as the move from metal coins to paper money.

In his view, blockchain’s key advantage isn’t simply competing with card networks; it is enabling new forms of digital money and asset ownership. He pointed to cross-border movement of large sums as an instructive contrast: traditional bank-to-bank transfers require heavy compliance workflows that can add time and cost. Stablecoins are not a like-for-like replacement—legal and operational conditions differ—but he said they can materially reduce operating costs and increase speed in certain contexts. The likely outcome, he argued, is not replacement but layering: a hybrid model that merges the strengths of legacy payment networks with onchain value transfer.

That belief hardened after he left Visa for Tangem, a company known for blending hardware self-custody with familiar card-like payment experiences. The lesson, Batuev said, was straightforward: most consumers don’t want to choose between crypto and traditional finance. They want to spend their assets as simply as they use a bank card, without learning the underlying mechanics of private keys, blockchains, or liquidity routes.

At WeFi, Batuev is advancing what he calls ‘Deobank’—a model he describes as a bank-like experience without surrendering asset ownership. In his framing, traditional banks hold customers’ money; a Deobank lets customers directly hold digital assets while remaining full participants in the global financial system. The goal is a single, seamless interface where a user can pay in crypto or fiat across borders, while retaining control over their capital.

Batuev identified ‘intermediaries’ as the central bottleneck in cross-border payments: each additional institution increases costs, slows settlement, and reduces transparency. Stablecoins, he said, are the first widely deployed mechanism that can move value across the internet at something closer to data-speed. Still, WeFi’s aim is explicitly connective rather than disruptive—building bridges between stablecoin infrastructure and established rails instead of trying to replace the incumbents outright.

That approach has been reinforced by a recently announced collaboration designed to let users spend stablecoin balances anywhere Visa’s merchant network is accepted. For Batuev, the partnership is both symbolic and practical. He said his years at Visa ingrained an understanding of the standards required for security, uptime, and consumer-grade user experience—benchmarks he believes crypto-native products must meet to compete for mainstream trust.

Batuev pushed back on the idea that Visa and decentralized finance are natural enemies. Visa, he said, remains one of the world’s strongest systems for authorization and merchant acceptance, while blockchain introduces a new way to store and transfer digital value. The future, in his telling, belongs to ‘hybrid models’ that combine those capabilities rather than forcing users into ideological camps.

Despite stablecoin payments often being called crypto’s ‘killer app,’ Batuev argued the limiting factor is no longer core technology. The real challenge is user experience: consumers should not need to consider where liquidity sits, which chain is being used, or how conversion happens at the point of sale. WeFi is building around what it describes as an ‘onchain bank account’ concept intended to make these decisions implicit, delivering familiar payment flows across physical point-of-sale and e-commerce, including mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Self-custody presents a parallel problem. While it increases user control, it can be difficult to manage safely. “Most people don’t want to become cryptography experts,” Batuev said, describing WeFi’s approach as layered key security—including cold storage—paired with the ability to deploy funds easily for everyday spending.

On regulation, Batuev drew a sharp distinction between approvals and adoption. Licensing and compliance, he said, are achievable milestones; ‘user trust’ must be earned continuously. WeFi’s expansion strategy is therefore staged by jurisdiction, leaning on partnerships with licensed financial institutions, electronic money institutions (EMIs), card service providers, and manufacturers to increase operational resilience and customer reach.

The company is prioritizing Asia-Pacific as an initial focus, with Batuev calling the region a long-running proving ground for financial innovation. Adoption patterns, he noted, vary widely—what works in Japan may not work in Vietnam or South Korea—but users across key markets often share demand for international payment capabilities and premium services. He singled out South Korea as “one of the most mature crypto markets” while also emphasizing that local consumers have high expectations for product quality, leaving little room for ‘half-baked’ launches.

Batuev’s motivation, he suggested, is also personal. Years of living and working across countries made financial fragmentation more visible: people’s lives are increasingly global—earning in one country, living in another, paying for services in a third—while financial infrastructure remains stubbornly local, governed by country-by-country rules. That mismatch is no longer a niche inconvenience, he argued, but a defining problem for modern finance.

Outside work, Batuev said he continues to observe payment behaviors while traveling—watching which methods consumers choose and how deeply mobile wallets, QR payments, and cards have penetrated. He also expressed interest in artificial intelligence as an emerging front-end for financial services, predicting that many everyday banking tasks could shift from mobile apps to ‘intelligent digital assistants’ in the coming years.

Looking ahead three years, Batuev said success would not be measured only by transaction volume or user counts, but by normalcy: the idea of using a Deobank should feel ordinary, and the underlying rails should fade from view. The end state, he said, is a world where users can access funds instantly, store them safely, and pay globally—moving between traditional finance and digital assets without unnecessary steps. “When people stop noticing the financial infrastructure,” he said, “that’s real success.”