Visa and Nium launch 7-day stablecoin pilot under Singapore's BLOOM. What to know: * Visa and Nium will test seven-day stablecoin settlement under Singapore's BLOOM pilot. * The pilot covers dollar- and euro-backed stablecoins on weekends and public holidays. * BLOOM connects stablecoin rails with existing payment security and compliance controls. Visa has joined Singapore's BLOOM initiative and selected Nium for its first pilot under the program. The companies will test seven-day cross-border settlement with regulated stablecoins backed by U.S. dollars and euros across payment flows. As per a report, the Monetary Authority of Singapore leads BLOOM. It will examine how financial institutions can connect traditional payment systems with stablecoin rails during periods when ordinary bank settlement is unavailable. Existing security and compliance controls will remain part of the process. Why is Visa testing stablecoin settlement with Nium? Nium will become Visa's first partner in this setup. Visa and Nium will test if the stablecoins can be used to settle payment obligations during the weekend and public holidays. This test will include the settlement of payments during the entire week, including days when banks are closed. The test will study whether regulated stablecoins will solve such delays and how fast institutions can access settled payments. The scope of the initial project is focused on stablecoins that are backed by the dollar and the euro. Neither company disclosed what stablecoins would be tested. The project is going to focus on the process of settlement rather than on how customers would start their payments. Visa stated that the stablecoins would increase the programmability of payment flows and assist institutions with managing settlements out of banking hours. How does BLOOM link payments and stablecoins? Adeline Kim, Visa regional Southeast Asia Group Country Manager of Visa and senior vice president of Global Clients and Acquirers in Asia Pacific, said that different types of money would require interconnectivity among different payment networks. "The future of payments will be shaped by how different forms of money and payment networks work together for different use cases," Kim added. The pilot project is the integration of a global card network and cross-border payment platform in BLOOM. It aims at ensuring interoperability between legacy financial systems and the stablecoin settlement system. BLOOM was launched by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2025. The BLOOM project deals with payment systems using tokenized bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins. As reported earlier, BLOOM also covers multi-currency settlement, corporate treasury, trade finance, and automated payments. Earlier participants included Circle, DBS, OCBC, Partior, Stripe, and UOB. Another BLOOM test was announced in March. Ripple and supply-chain finance company Unloq used RLUSD on the XRP Ledger. Their system connected settlement with shipment verification and financing conditions. What supports Visa's stablecoin settlement strategy? Visa has previously expanded its stablecoin and currency capabilities. These include handling of assets like USDC and euro-based EURC through their settlement platform. They have also added blockchain platforms to address institutional settlement requirements. Visa's Chief Executive Ryan McInerney talked about this strategy during the firm's July fiscal third-quarter earnings call of the firm. He called the strategy "multi-coin, multi-chain." McInerney noted that the company would not favor any particular stablecoin as a winner. Visa registered a net revenue of $11.63 billion for the quarter. Their payment volume and transaction volume each grew by 10% compared to the last year. Cross-border volume grew by 13% during the same reporting period. The pilot will aim at continuous settlement with control mechanisms intact. The test will look into the connectivity of stablecoins' rails to the existing payment network. The test will cover cross-border settlements out of business hours throughout the week.

Visa taps Nium for stablecoin settlement pilot under Singapore BLOOM. Visa has joined Singapore's BLOOM initiative and selected Nium for a pilot testing seven-day settlement with regulated U.S. dollar and euro-backed stablecoins across cross-border payment flows. * Visa has joined Singapore's BLOOM initiative to test stablecoin settlement with Nium. * The pilot will explore settlements seven days a week, including weekends and public holidays. * Regulated stablecoins backed by the U.S. dollar and euro will be supported. * Nium is Visa's first partner for a stablecoin settlement pilot under BLOOM. Visa said in an announcement that the Monetary Authority of Singapore-led program will test how financial institutions can connect traditional payment systems with stablecoin payment rails while retaining existing security and compliance controls. Nium will serve as Visa's first partner under the framework, with the companies examining whether stablecoins can settle payment obligations throughout the week, including weekends and public holidays. Traditional payment settlement often remains tied to banking days, creating periods when institutions cannot complete parts of the settlement process. Under the pilot, Visa and Nium will study how regulated stablecoins backed by major currencies can reduce such delays and give participating financial institutions faster access to funds. The initial scope includes dollar and euro-denominated stablecoins, though the companies did not identify individual tokens that would be used. Visa stablecoin settlement pilot targets seven-day payments. For financial institutions, the test focuses on the settlement layer behind payments instead of changing how customers initiate transactions. Visa said stablecoins could make payment flows more programmable and allow institutions to manage settlement outside normal banking hours while using its network, security systems and compliance controls. Discover more Engineering & Technology Brokerages & Day Trading Currencies & Foreign Exchange Adeline Kim, Visa's group country manager for Regional Southeast Asia and senior vice president for Global Clients and Acquirers in Asia Pacific, said different forms of money will increasingly need to operate across connected payment networks. "The future of payments will be shaped by how different forms of money and payment networks work together for different use cases," Kim said. Visa's work under BLOOM follows several stablecoin settlement projects that have moved beyond tests focused only on public blockchain transfers. In June, crypto.news reported on a private settlement test involving Visa, Brale and the Canton Network. The proof of concept used Brale's U.S. dollar-backed SBC stablecoin to examine whether institutions could settle transactions onchain while limiting the public visibility of sensitive payment and settlement data. Privacy was central to that project because regulated financial institutions often need blockchain infrastructure that can preserve transaction confidentiality while keeping records available for compliance and audit requirements. BLOOM expands Singapore's tokenized settlement work. The Monetary Authority of Singapore introduced BLOOM in 2025 as a framework for developing settlement systems based on tokenized bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins. As previously covered on crypto.news, BLOOM was designed around cross-border and domestic payments, multi-currency settlement and institutional applications including corporate treasury, trade finance and automated payments. Participants named at the time included Circle, DBS, OCBC, Partior, Stripe and UOB. BLOOM also built on Project Orchid, MAS's earlier work on programmable money and a potential digital Singapore dollar. More than 10 Project Orchid trials were used to study practical digital-money applications before parts of that work were carried into commercial projects. One BLOOM test announced in March involved Ripple and supply-chain finance company Unloq using RLUSD on the XRP Ledger. The companies were testing a trade-finance system in which settlement could be linked with shipment verification and financing conditions. Visa's pilot adds a global card network and a cross-border payments provider to the program, with the focus placed specifically on interoperability between conventional payment infrastructure and stablecoin settlement. Kim said Visa is examining how stablecoins can complement existing payment systems while preserving "the security, resilience and compliance standards that underpin global commerce." Nium adds BLOOM to its stablecoin payment work. For Nium, the Singapore pilot follows its previous work using stablecoins for international business payments. In April, the company announced a USDC payout integration with Coinbase that brought stablecoin-based cross-border payments into Nium's network spanning more than 190 countries. The setup allows businesses to fund payouts using USDC and settle in either stablecoins or local currencies. Coinbase provides custody, liquidity and wallet infrastructure for the service. Nium said at the time that clients could fund payouts on demand instead of maintaining prefunded balances for each market, addressing one of the liquidity requirements associated with conventional international payment systems. The BLOOM pilot tests another part of the process by focusing on settlement between participating financial institutions and Visa. Amaresh Mohan, Nium's chief risk and compliance officer, said the companies are building infrastructure connecting established payment networks with stablecoin rails. "This convergence is not only inevitable, it's essential," Mohan said, adding that combining established payment networks with programmable digital currencies could provide new settlement options for financial institutions. Visa has expanded onchain settlement across nine networks. Visa already runs stablecoin settlement infrastructure across several blockchain networks. An April stablecoin settlement expansion added Base, Polygon, Canton, Arc and Tempo to its pilot, bringing the total number of supported networks to nine alongside Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche and Stellar. Visa reported an annualized stablecoin settlement run rate of about $7 billion at the time, up 50% from the previous quarter. By June, Visa said issuing banks participating in its onchain programs could already settle with the network seven days a week. The company was also working to extend seven-day settlement to acquirers, which receive funds on behalf of merchants after card transactions are processed. Discover more Digital Currencies Visa has also added support for multiple stablecoins and currencies to keep its settlement system from depending on a single token. Its infrastructure has supported assets including USDC and euro-backed EURC, while the company has continued adding blockchain networks based on institutional settlement requirements. During Visa's July fiscal third-quarter earnings call, Chief Executive Ryan McInerney described the company's stablecoin strategy as "multi-coin, multi-chain" and said Visa did not intend to select a single stablecoin winner. The company reported $11.63 billion in quarterly net revenue, while payment volume and processed transactions each rose 10% year over year and cross-border volume increased 13%. For the Singapore test, Visa and Nium have not disclosed a launch timetable, expected transaction volume, or the financial institutions that could participate beyond the two companies. Mohan said the BLOOM work is intended to establish interoperability between traditional and stablecoin-based rails while keeping compliance requirements embedded in the settlement process. Read more:

Visa joins Singapore Project Bloom stablecoin pilot. Tue, 25th Aug 2026 (Today) Visa has joined the Monetary Authority of Singapore-led Project Bloom, with Nium as its first pilot partner in Singapore. The project is examining how traditional payment systems can work with stablecoin-based settlement rails. Visa and Nium plan to test regulated stablecoins for settlement, including US dollar- and euro-denominated tokens. Project Bloom, short for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency, is designed to expand settlement options for financial institutions. The initiative focuses on interoperability between existing payment networks and stablecoin systems, as regulators and payments companies assess whether digital settlement tools can fit within established financial safeguards. Under the pilot, the companies will explore whether settlement can take place seven days a week, including weekends and public holidays. Payment settlement usually follows business-day schedules, which can delay financial institutions' access to funds. That matters in cross-border payments, where timing gaps can affect treasury operations, liquidity management and the speed at which businesses receive money. A shift to continuous settlement could change how institutions manage working capital and reconcile transfers across markets. Singapore has become a key testing ground for this work as policymakers and financial firms seek ways to connect digital assets with mainstream financial infrastructure. The city-state's central bank has backed several industry experiments to assess how tokenised money and regulated digital instruments could be used within conventional payment and settlement systems. For Visa, the move places one of the world's largest card and payments networks inside a regulatory initiative focused directly on stablecoin interoperability. It also shows how major incumbents are trying to shape the rules and operating models for digital settlement rather than leaving that work solely to crypto-native firms. Nium's role puts the Singapore-founded fintech at the centre of the pilot. The company recently expanded its US activities by launching domestic card issuance, adding to a business that already issues more than 41 million card credentials a year across markets including Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, the UK and Europe. Nium's existing card and cross-border payments operations mean the trial links a digital asset settlement experiment with a firm that already manages payment flows across multiple regions. That could give the project a practical way to test how stablecoin settlement interacts with established issuing and money movement systems. Industry test The pilot will focus on regulated stablecoins backed by major currencies. That emphasis reflects a broader trend in policy and industry discussions, where interest has shifted towards instruments designed to maintain a stable value and operate within compliance standards familiar to financial institutions. Supporters argue that such tokens could reduce settlement frictions, especially outside standard banking hours. Critics, however, continue to question how interoperability, redemption, supervision and operational resilience would work at scale, particularly where digital and traditional payment rails intersect. Visa said the work is intended to explore complementarity rather than replacement. It framed the pilot as part of a broader effort to examine how different forms of money might be used together depending on the use case. The project comes as stablecoins draw greater scrutiny from central banks, regulators and payment groups in Asia, Europe and the US. Much of that interest centres on whether these instruments can improve settlement speed and availability without weakening trust in payment systems. "The future of payments will be shaped by how different forms of money and payment networks work together for different use cases," said Adeline Kim, Group Country Manager for Regional Southeast Asia and SVP, Global Clients & Acquirers, Asia Pacific, Visa. "Through BLOOM and our pilot with Nium in Singapore, we are exploring how stablecoins can complement existing payment infrastructure, enabling greater flexibility in settlement while preserving the security, resilience and compliance standards that underpin global commerce. As digital payments continue to evolve, interoperability will be critical to delivering meaningful value across the financial ecosystem," said Kim. Nium described the project as part of a broader convergence between traditional and digital payment rails. It said the test would help define how payment infrastructure in the region develops. "This pilot with Visa under BLOOM is a meaningful step in our partnership to shape the next phase of payments in the region," said Amaresh Mohan, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer, Nium. "We're building foundational infrastructure for seamless interoperability between traditional and stablecoin-based rails. This convergence is not only inevitable, it's essential. By bringing together the security and trust of established payment networks with the efficiency and programmability of digital currencies, we unlock real value for financial institutions and their customers. BLOOM demonstrates that innovation and compliance advance together," said Mohan.