Visa Explores Philippine Stablecoin Remittances as Trust Trails Cash

Visa is exploring stablecoin remittances in the Philippines, where only 38% of Filipino respondents trusted such transfers, leaving a wide gap with cash and digital remittances.

Trust in cash remittances was 81%, while 79% of respondents trusted digital remittances. The survey also found that 42% had some awareness of stablecoins and 79% wanted more education about them.

Qinwen Xiao, Visa Direct head for regional Southeast Asia, said Visa is discussing possible uses with local authorities and organizations. She said the company has no adoption timeline for consumers, businesses or financial institutions. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a timeline on when exactly the consumers or businesses or financial institutions will adopt stable coins,” Xiao said.

A Visa survey polled 45,445 remittance senders and receivers in 20 markets between Feb. 24 and March 2, 2026.

Visa’s separate business service allows eligible companies to prefund cross-border payouts with USD Coin (USDC) in near real time. On Oct. 15, Visa announced that Visa Direct stablecoin prefunding had entered commercial deployment, with Inyo Global as the first enabler. The announcement did not specify a Philippine consumer remittance service.

Visa previously moved stablecoin prefunding for Visa Direct into commercial deployment.

Cash remittances listed under the United States totaled $9.33 billion from January through August 2026, out of $23.42 billion overall. The country figures can reflect correspondent-bank routing or the location of a money courier’s main office, rather than the sender’s actual country.