Visa and Lloyds Banking Group have completed a live cross-border stablecoin settlement pilot using USDC purchased via Archax.
The test concentrated on settlement, the process through which financial institutions exchange funds to complete and reconcile payment activity, rather than on how payments are made. Through a series of real-world transactions, the two companies assessed how stablecoins could operate alongside existing settlement processes and measured the effect on speed, transparency, and operations.
How the pilot was structured
Lloyds purchased the USDC used in the pilot through Archax, a UK-regulated digital asset exchange. The settlement volume was booked through Lloyds' Corporate Markets branch in Jersey and then transferred to Visa in the US.
The pilot also tested settlement across private and public blockchain environments. Lloyds operated its own node on Canton, using the network's configurable privacy features, while Visa supported settlement on a separate public blockchain. The companies said this demonstrated interoperability between the two networks. They argued that interoperability matters because liquidity and activity increasingly span multiple chains, and institutions need access to different networks without losing reach or flexibility. In addition, Visa described its role as reducing the complexity of stablecoin settlement for institutions exploring new payment capabilities through its network.
Settlement outside banking hours
The pilot addresses a specific constraint in traditional cross-border settlement, which is its dependence on banking hours. Under conventional processes, settlement initiated outside those hours can take a day or more. For banks and their business clients, uncertainty over when funds will arrive affects liquidity management, the ability to meet obligations, and financial planning.
According to the companies, settling certain transactions around the clock could provide clearer visibility into the status of funds and greater certainty over arrival times. It could also reduce the liquidity held while settlement completes. They identified weekends and holidays as the periods where this matters most.
Peter Left, Head of Digital Assets at Lloyds Banking Group, said stablecoins could be particularly useful for cross-border payments, where moving money between markets, currencies, and infrastructures adds time and complexity. He also added that settling live obligations had allowed the bank to test these capabilities in practice rather than in theory, and that interoperability between blockchain networks could support future applications of digital money at scale.
Rob Cameron, Group Country Manager, UK & Ireland, Visa, noted that businesses increasingly operate across borders and around the clock, but the infrastructure for moving money has not always offered the same flexibility. In addition, the pilot showed how stablecoins could work alongside existing banking infrastructure and give financial institutions more choice over how and when they settle funds.
The pilot forms part of Lloyds' broader exploration of how digital assets and tokenised forms of money could be used to move value between businesses and financial institutions.
