Where BVNK, Polygon Labs think stablecoin payments will happen

• Key insights: BVNK and Polygon Labs are building scale for stablecoin payments. 
• What's at stake: Stablecoins are not widely used for consumer payments at merchants, but the firms think cross-border transfers may be a fit.
• Forward look: BVNK will build a global stablecoin network through a partnership with Visa, while Polygon plans to use recent acquisitions to develop a broad technology menu to support international stablecoin payments. 

Payment companies are flooding the cryptocurrency and stablecoin markets with cards, apps and portals that enable cryptocurrency and stablecoin payments, though widespread demand has yet to emerge.

"For years people have been saying 'this is the time it's going to change, and we're going to see crypto being used for payments,' but in most instances that hasn't been the case," Marc Boiron, CEO of blockchain payments company Polygon Labs, told American Banker.

Polygon Labs, which sells money movement technology, believes stablecoins will find demand in "hard to pay" areas that involve different currencies or require complex navigation. In this environment, Polygon, and other firms such as BVNK, are racing to build technology to enable stablecoin payments at scale – something that still hasn't happened despite the buzz. 

Buying and integrating

Blockchain technology company BVNK is attempting to expand its stablecoin network. BVNK, which has partnered with PayPal to scale the PYUSD stablecoin, in late January partnered with Visa to support stablecoin transfers over the Visa Direct cross-border real-time payment rail. "2025 was about thinking through stablecoin strategy," said Chris Harmse, co-founder of BVNK. "Now it's about implementation." 

Visa Direct, which enables person-to-person and bank-to-bank payments via linked debit cards, uses 90 domestic payment schemes and 60 card and wallet networks with an addressable market of 12 billion endpoints and 4 billion cards – covering person-to-person and bank-to-bank transfers. In fiscal 2025, Visa Direct processed 12.5 billion transactions. 

Visa in October began piloting a stablecoin option for Visa Direct, enabling companies to move funds between countries at all times with near instant settlement. Cross-border payments is considered a potential use for stablecoins, which are unlikely to be used for domestic payments at the point of sale in most countries due to mature and reliable card-based payment systems. "Stablecoins are an exciting opportunity for global payments, with enormous potential to reduce friction and expand access to faster, more efficient payment options," Mark Nelsen, global head of product, commercial and money movement solutions at Visa, said in a release. 

By linking to BVNK, Visa Direct can process international stablecoin payments between accounts or digital wallets without requiring extra steps to convert to traditional currency – which the companies say enables faster processing. 

"There are a couple of uses, such as B2B and cross-border," Harmse said, adding there is a pending pilot to add BVNK's API to a merchant acquiring platform, though he did not name the participants.

Visa has made stablecoins and support for blockchain technology a major part of its strategy. In late 2025 the card network launched a stablecoin advisory service, following other initiatives such as supporting stablecoin payouts to freelancers. Visa reports that more than 50% of its e-commerce transactions are tokenized, and it has set a goal of 100% tokenization.

Another blockchain technology company, Polygon, in January acquired cryptocurrency technology firms CoinMe and Sequence in two deals totaling $250 million, with plans to use the acquired technology to build a technology platform to support global stablecoin payments. Polygon's strategy post-acquisition is to spot payments that are difficult to figure out or are financially challenging, and to make it simpler to execute by using stablecoins or the underlying technology, a concept that firms such as Ripple have used in the past – plying blockchains to execute cross-border payments without relying on correspondent banks.

"The idea of making merchant payments with stablecoins in developed countries doesn't make sense," Boiron said, adding transfers outside of the U.S. could be hard to figure out. 

Coinme's technology connects cash, debit rails and digital assets, and has a network of more than 50,000 retail locations. Sequence enables applications to move stablecoins across different payment networks. 

Polygon is attempting to boost its payments volume by creating what it calls an "Open Money Stack" for global stablecoin payments. Polygon said it processed more than 260 million stablecoin transactions payments through the first three weeks of January, well before the introduction of the new stack, which won't be ready for a few months. 

"There is an opportunity in cross-border payments," Boiron said. "Moving stablecoins across borders is supereasy." 

What the tech can and can't do

There are several strategies that these technology firms can use to aid banks, according to Enrico Camerinelli, a strategic advisor at Datos Insights.

This includes embedded functionality, in which banks embed stablecoin function directly within their payment rails. Firms in this space include BVNK, Coinbase and Circle, Camerinelli said. 

Another strategy includes an orchestration platform, in which banks use the technology to shield operations teams from complexity. "The value here is that banks can focus more on their business," Camerinelli said. 

Banks can also leverage existing payments networks such as SWIFT, and layer blockchain capabilities onto infrastructure that already connects financial institutions globally.

"The value here is this is less intrusive on banks' existing rails," Camerinelli said.

The infrastructure providers matter because they lower the barriers to experimentation and scale, according to James Wester, a director at Javelin Strategy & Research.

"They let banks and networks test stablecoin applications, and begin to scale, without rebuilding any internal systems or getting locked into any one architecture," Wester told American Banker. "Plus, they have the talent required to build those applications. That said, it's also important to separate building infrastructure from actual stablecoin use. There may be a lot of large players involved, like networks and banks, but that doesn't mean adoption."