Lloyds Banking Group and Visa have completed a seven-day live pilot in which $750,000 of cross-border payment obligations were settled using the USDC stablecoin, with funds arriving at Visa in the United States in under an hour — including transactions initiated over the weekend.

The trial offers a working example of blockchain-based settlement between a major UK bank and a global payments network, and illustrates how stablecoins could allow financial institutions to move money outside traditional banking hours.

Settlement, Not Consumer Payments

The pilot concentrated on the settlement layer rather than consumer-facing payments. Lloyds acquired USDC through Archax, a UK-regulated digital asset exchange, and booked the settlement activity through its Corporate Markets branch in Jersey before transferring the funds to Visa in the United States.

Conventional cross-border settlement can take a day or more when transactions begin outside normal banking hours. Traditional correspondent-banking chains operate on business-day schedules across time zones, which is why payments initiated on a Friday evening or over a weekend have historically had to wait. By enabling funds to move around the clock, the pilot demonstrated how stablecoins could shorten that window.

Over the seven-day test, the two companies exercised several components of the settlement process: $750,000 in total U.S. dollar obligations were settled; funds reached Visa in under an hour, including over the weekend; Lloyds operated a node on the Canton blockchain; and Visa supported settlement on a separate public blockchain. Canton is built for institutional finance and allows configurable privacy over transaction details — the capability Lloyds drew on during the test.

Multi-Chain Infrastructure Under Test

The differing blockchain environments formed a central element of the trial. Lloyds made use of Canton's configurable privacy features, while Visa settled on another public chain. The arrangement tested whether financial institutions can transact across distinct blockchain networks without dependence on a single piece of infrastructure — a capability likely to grow in importance as banks and payment companies experiment with tokenized money and digital assets.

Visa has been steadily building out its stablecoin settlement capabilities since piloting USDC settlement transactions as far back as 2021. In December 2025, the company announced U.S. settlement support using USDC for selected banking partners. Visa said its stablecoin settlement strategy aims to improve funds movement, liquidity management, and availability outside traditional business days.

For Lloyds, the pilot extends a broader exploration of digital assets and tokenized money, placing the bank alongside a growing group of global institutions testing blockchain rails for wholesale payments, with international stablecoin payments identified as a development area for business customers.

The $750,000 trial remains a pilot rather than a broad commercial rollout. How quickly such arrangements move into recurring production settlement — and how stablecoin regulatory frameworks taking shape in the US and UK accommodate bank participation — are among the open questions to watch. Still, it shows how stablecoins can be integrated into institutional settlement processes while connecting traditional banking infrastructure with multiple blockchain networks.