Cross-border Payments

The FCA has opened an investigation into Visa, Mastercard and PayPal over whether their digital wallet agreements may be limiting competition in the UK. At the same time, Mastercard is also involved in a separate pilot with banks and crypto firms to test faster cross-border settlement using tokenised US Treasuries.

Brazil has banned foreign exchange providers from using stablecoins and cryptocurrencies to settle cross-border payments, forcing them to use traditional banking channels instead. Crypto trading remains legal, but firms using blockchain for remittances must change their systems by deadlines running to 2027.

Visa has partnered with WeFi to test stablecoin payments that let users spend crypto while keeping control of their own funds. The rollout will begin in parts of Europe, Asia and Latin America, with plans to expand as rules and approvals allow.

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank has introduced a new crypto-linked credit card that allows users to settle monthly credit card bills directly in Bitcoin held on their exchange accounts, marking one of the most advanced integrations of crypto assets into regulated payment infrastructure in Japan to date.

Western Union has just announced that it will be launching its USDPT stable in May, marking a decisive shift from experimentation to full-scale integration of digital assets across its global payments infrastructure.

K Bank is working with Ripple to test blockchain remittances for faster and cheaper cross-border payments. The trial is being done in phases, including on-chain transfers to countries like the UAE and Thailand.

KuCoin has launched its KuCard in Australia, letting users spend crypto directly at Mastercard merchants with automatic conversion to fiat at checkout. The service, built with Immersve, supports USDC and 37 trading pairs and works with Apple Pay and Google Pay for everyday payments.

Dan Finlay, co-founder of MetaMask, has stepped down from Consensys after nearly a decade, marking a notable leadership shift for one of the most widely used gateways into Web3.

Pornhub has replaced USDT with USDC for creator payouts, asking users to update payment details by June 2026. The platform says the change is to improve reliability and meet stricter regulatory requirements, as USDC is seen as more compliant than USDT.

Crypto wallet provider Exodus is rolling out a new “Exodus Pay” feature in its self-custodial storage wallet with aw very simple goal in mind: to making digital assets usable for everyday payments, even for beginners.