Visa Commercializes USD Coin Prefunding as Ripple Participates in Open USD

Visa moved USD Coin (USDC) prefunding for cross-border payouts into commercial use through Inyo Global on Oct. 15, while Visa and Ripple participate in a separate Open USD (OUSD) initiative.

The Visa Direct prefunding option lets eligible businesses place funds for international payouts using USDC in near real time. Inyo Global was the first processor to offer the option commercially after earlier pilots. Its rollout brought an existing feature into production; it did not introduce a new Visa Direct service using Ripple’s products.

When Open USD was introduced June 30, more than 140 businesses had signed up to use it. Visa and Ripple were both on that list, alongside Mastercard and BlackRock. Their participation in Open USD is distinct from Inyo Global’s role in the Visa Direct rollout.

Visa introduced the Visa Stablecoin Platform on July 16, offering selected institutional clients access to OUSD in an initial beta. The platform gives institutions a way to work with OUSD. Visa Direct’s commercial option, by comparison, uses USDC to prefund payouts through Inyo Global.

Visa became one of Open Standard’s five founding partners Sept. 24. OUSD went live Sept. 30, with Visa’s platform among the available integration paths. Bridge issues OUSD, and Open Standard’s partner count had grown to more than 200 by the launch. The June and September counts reflect different points in the initiative’s development.

The rollout comes amid wider growth in payments using stablecoins. By Sept. 30, stablecoin payments had reached $482 billion, 45% above the year-earlier total; Visa, Mastercard and Stripe introduced new services in mid-October. Visa’s two efforts give businesses access to different dollar-backed tokens through different products.

Ripple also offers its own dollar-backed stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD), through Ripple Payments in certain jurisdictions. XRP, the native cryptocurrency of the XRP Ledger, has a market-determined price. Neither RLUSD nor XRP is the token specified for Visa Direct’s commercial prefunding option. Ripple’s participation in Open USD does not establish a new use for XRP in that option.