Visa has joined Singapore's BLOOM initiative, a program led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), to pilot stablecoin-based settlement with cross-border payments firm Nium. BLOOM stands for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online and Multi-currency and brings together financial institutions and industry participants to test faster, more programmable cross-border payments. Maybank Singapore recently joined the initiative to help develop common standards and infrastructure for tokenised cross-border payments.
The pilot will use regulated stablecoins backed by major currencies, including the U.S. dollar and euro, alongside Visa's payment network and compliance systems. It will test whether those stablecoins can settle payment obligations seven days a week, including weekends and public holidays. Traditional settlement is tied to banking days, creating gaps where institutions cannot complete parts of the process. Nium is Visa's first pilot partner under the BLOOM framework. The two companies will examine how stablecoin settlement can reduce delays and give financial institutions faster access to funds outside standard settlement windows.
The pilot focuses on the settlement layer behind payments, not on how customers initiate transactions. Visa said stablecoins could make payment flows more programmable and allow institutions to manage settlement outside normal banking hours. Adeline Kim, Visa's group country manager for Regional Southeast Asia, said the pilot explores how stablecoins can complement existing payment infrastructure while preserving security, resilience and compliance standards. Amaresh Mohan, Nium's chief risk and compliance officer, called it a step toward seamless interoperability between traditional and stablecoin-based rails, adding that the convergence is inevitable and essential.
Visa already operates stablecoin settlement infrastructure across nine blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, Stellar, Base, Polygon, Canton, Arc and Tempo. The company reported an annualized stablecoin settlement run rate of about $7 billion as of April, up 50% from the prior quarter. By June, issuing banks in Visa's onchain programs could already settle seven days a week, and the company has been working to extend that to acquirers. During its July earnings call, CEO Ryan McInerney described the company's stablecoin approach as 'multi-coin, multi-chain,' saying Visa does not plan to back a single stablecoin. Visa reported $11.63 billion in quarterly net revenue in its July fiscal third quarter, with payment volume and processed transactions each rising 10% year over year.
For Nium, the pilot follows its April integration of USDC payouts via Coinbase, which brought stablecoin-based cross-border payments to its network covering more than 190 countries. That setup lets businesses fund payouts using USDC and settle in either stablecoins or local currencies without maintaining prefunded balances in each market. BLOOM was introduced by MAS in 2025 and includes participants such as Circle, DBS, OCBC, Partior, Stripe and UOB. It builds on Project Orchid, MAS's earlier work on programmable money. A separate BLOOM test announced in March involved Ripple and supply-chain finance firm Unloq using RLUSD on the XRP Ledger to test a trade-finance settlement system tied to shipment verification.
Visa and Nium have not disclosed a launch date, expected transaction volume, or which other financial institutions may join the pilot beyond the two companies. The move adds to the region's banks and payment networks moving into stablecoin infrastructure.
