Reap and Visa expand stablecoin card programmes to over 100 markets - thepaypers.com

Reap and Visa have expanded their stablecoin-backed card programmes to more than 100 markets, according to The Paypers. The arrangement allows businesses to use stablecoins — crypto tokens designed to hold a steady value, typically pegged to a fiat currency such as the US dollar — to fund card spending, with Visa's network handling settlement at the point of sale.

The significance lies in the plumbing rather than the headline count. Card networks have increasingly positioned stablecoins as a settlement rail that can move value across borders faster than correspondent banking, while merchants and cardholders interact only with familiar card infrastructure. For market participants, the expansion is a signal that stablecoin payments are being tested at consumer scale rather than confined to crypto-native venues.

What to watch: whether more issuers and acquirers follow into similar programmes, how regulators in individual markets treat stablecoin-funded card spending, and whether settlement volumes become material enough to be disclosed. Adoption figures so far describe market coverage, not usage, so the practical uptake remains the metric that matters.