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.
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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.
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