Hyundai Card has moved its Avalanche-based stablecoin payment experiment toward a new scale-testing phase after completing a live $20,000 corporate transfer between Hyundai Motor entities in the U.S. and Mexico.
Summary
- Hyundai Card says its Avalanche pilot settled a $20,000 intercompany transfer in roughly seven minutes.
- Hyundai Motor America converted dollars into USDT before sending funds to Hyundai Motor Mexico directly.
- Hyundai Card plans to test whether the operating model can handle larger transaction volumes reliably.
- Tether, Avalanche and Axiym supported the first pilot, while Hyundai led compliance and settlement design.
- Hyundai has not announced a group-wide rollout date or confirmed full commercial deployment plans yet.
Avalanche said on Sept. 16 that Hyundai Card’s next task is proving the payment infrastructure can operate at a larger scale, quoting Heejung Nam, head of payments and business development at Hyundai Card, as saying: “We have to prove the entire operation model works at scale.” Nam added, “What happens if we can scale up? Then the economic model works.”
The statement does not establish a launch date or confirm that Hyundai Motor Group has approved routine production use. Hyundai Card’s original July announcement said the company planned to examine whether stablecoins could support settlements and fund transfers across the group’s overseas entities after completing its first proof of concept.
Hyundai Card now wants to prove the model can scale
Hyundai Card’s latest comments focus on operational scale after the first transaction showed that a real intercompany payment could travel through stablecoin infrastructure. The initial test involved a relatively small amount, leaving transaction volume, treasury complexity and repeatability for later testing.
Nam’s comments, distributed by Avalanche, indicate that Hyundai Card is assessing whether the structure can support more demanding corporate payment activity. The company has not disclosed a target number of transactions, a larger test amount or performance thresholds that would need to be reached before commercial adoption.
Hyundai Card had already said in July that it had prepared the system to a level where real use between overseas Hyundai Motor entities was technically possible. Its official release described the first test as extending beyond a basic technology demonstration because the transaction corresponded to an actual intercompany settlement requirement.
A commercial deployment would still require Hyundai to operate the system repeatedly across corporate treasury processes and jurisdictions. Hyundai Card said during the first pilot that it handled regulatory review, accounting, tax checks, internal controls and the structure of the remittance process before the funds moved.
Avalanche handled the $20,000 USDT payment
During the first pilot, Hyundai Motor America converted $20,000 into Tether’s USDT stablecoin before transferring the tokens through Avalanche to Hyundai Motor Mexico. The receiving entity then converted the USDT back into U.S. dollars.
Hyundai Card said the complete process, including remittance and verification, took an average of around seven minutes. The company compared that result with three to four hours or more for a traditional interbank transfer using its existing process. The timing comparison is Hyundai Card’s measurement from the pilot and should not be treated as a universal benchmark for bank transfers.
As crypto.news previously reported, the transfer involved genuine corporate funds and was tied to an intercompany payment need, distinguishing it from a transaction executed entirely with test assets. Hyundai Card said it was the first stablecoin-based cross-border remittance pilot of this type completed by the company.
Tether provided the dollar-linked stablecoin, while Avalanche supplied the blockchain used for the on-chain portion. Axiym, a blockchain payments infrastructure company, took part in the payment setup. Avalanche describes Axiym as a liquidity and settlement infrastructure provider for cross-border payment companies.
The company name is Axiym, not “Axiom,” as some secondary coverage has written it. Hyundai Card’s original release identifies Axiym alongside Tether and Avalanche as a participant in the first pilot.
Hyundai planned a second stablecoin test in Europe
After completing the U.S.-Mexico transfer, Hyundai Card said it intended to extend testing to Hyundai Motor’s European entities. The July plan called for a second proof of concept using real transfers based on currencies other than the U.S. dollar, with Circle and Visa participating.
That phase was designed to examine foreign-exchange costs and the economics of using stablecoins when the sender and receiver do not rely on the same fiat currency. Hyundai Card said the first U.S.-Mexico transaction did not test that variable because dollars were used at both ends.
Crypto.news reported in July that the Europe test was expected to involve Hyundai Motor subsidiaries, Circle and Visa while examining local-currency settlement. The report followed Hyundai Card’s announcement that the next experiment would expand beyond the dollar-only structure used in North America.
The latest Hyundai Card newsroom materials reviewed on Sept. 17 do not contain a public announcement confirming completion of that European pilot. Avalanche’s Sept. 16 statement instead returns to the question of proving that the operating model can work at scale. No transaction amount, completion date or performance figures for the European phase were provided in the latest update.
Visa has continued building stablecoin settlement infrastructure separately. In related crypto.news coverage, Visa said more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs were operating globally during its fiscal second quarter, while its annualized stablecoin settlement volume had exceeded $20 billion. Those figures cover Visa’s global activity and are not Hyundai-specific.
Hyundai has not set a commercial deployment date
Hyundai Card has said it intends to study stablecoins for settlement and treasury transfers among Hyundai Motor Group entities around the world, but neither the July announcement nor the Sept. 16 update provides a timetable for group-wide use.
The latest comments therefore describe another testing stage. Hyundai Card still needs to demonstrate that the infrastructure can handle transaction volume and operating requirements beyond the $20,000 proof of concept before any routine treasury deployment is publicly confirmed.
Nam framed the next stage around economics as well as technical capacity. Her comment that “the economic model works” if the system can scale represents Hyundai Card’s assessment of what the company still needs to prove; no detailed cost comparison or projected savings from a larger deployment accompanied the statement.
Hyundai Card’s July release was similarly careful about future use. The company said it planned to explore stablecoins across international remittance, settlement and payment infrastructure after completing the first PoC, without committing to production deployment.
Stablecoins have meanwhile continued appearing in corporate treasury tests outside Hyundai. As crypto.news reported in August, payments company Decta began using USDC for international treasury settlement through OpenPayd, while other companies have been testing stablecoins for cross-border liquidity and corporate payments.
For Hyundai, the publicly confirmed activity remains the live $20,000 U.S.-Mexico payment, the previously announced European testing plan and the Sept. 16 statement that the company now needs to demonstrate that its operating model can work at scale.
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