Lloyds Banking Group and Visa have completed a live pilot using stablecoins to settle cross-border payment obligations, testing whether the technology could help financial institutions move money faster and more flexibly.

During the seven-day trial, Lloyds settled US$750,000 of payment obligations with Visa using the USDC stablecoin, which is pegged to the dollar. The bank said funds reached Visa in less than an hour, including over weekends, compared with traditional cross-border settlement processes that can take a day or more outside normal banking hours.

The pilot marks the first stablecoin settlement trial between Visa and a major UK banking group.

Rather than testing customer payments, Lloyds said the project focused on settlement, the process financial institutions use to exchange funds and complete payment obligations. Lloyds and Visa assessed whether stablecoins could improve settlement speed, transparency and operational efficiency while working alongside existing banking infrastructure.

Lloyds purchased USDC through UK-regulated digital asset exchange Archax before transferring the funds from its corporate markets branch in Jersey to Visa in the US.

The organisations said faster, round-the-clock settlement could help businesses improve liquidity management by giving them greater certainty over when funds arrive and reducing delays caused by weekends and public holidays.

The pilot also tested interoperability between different blockchain environments. Lloyds said it used its own node on the Canton Network, while Visa completed settlement on a separate public blockchain, demonstrating how stablecoin transactions could operate across multiple networks.

“Stablecoins could be particularly valuable for cross-border payments, where moving money between markets, currencies and infrastructures can add time and complexity,” said Peter Left, head of digital assets at Lloyds Banking Group. “We're seeing how digital money could help make international payments faster, more transparent and more flexible for businesses.

“Greater visibility and certainty over the movement of funds can transform liquidity management, while interoperability between blockchain networks helps unlock future applications of digital money at scale.”

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