Tag: Visa Direct

Tuesday, 20 October 2026  ·  8 min read

In this issue

Networks crossing into new territory

Visa got the go-ahead to prepare a domestic card-clearing business in China. Visa and Mastercard both moved stablecoins from pilots into production payout products. India blinked on charging merchants for large UPI payments. And in Washington, the swipe-fee fight got a presidential endorsement.

On 15 October, Visa said businesses can now prefund Visa Direct payouts with USDC rather than fiat, with Inyo Global as the first enabler and payouts reaching more than 180 countries. Vira Platonova said: “The next chapter for stablecoins is adoption” (Visa).

This is the first integration since Mastercard acquired BVNK in August. It combines multi-currency fiat and stablecoin accounts, stablecoin-linked cards and Mastercard Move payouts in one platform (BVNK).

National Bank of Bahrain will use TerraPay’s network, which accepts Swift ISO 20022 messages, to reach what TerraPay says are more than 12 billion bank accounts, wallets and local payment endpoints (TerraPay).

Brazil’s central bank data, reported on 9 October, show more than 1 billion registered Pix keys across about 170 million users. Random keys lead with 526 million. In September, 7.1 billion transactions worth R$3.2 trillion passed through the instant payment system (Folha de S.Paulo).

Digital Transactions’ 14 October briefs include Cross River integrating Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin and a Cliq–Vast Bank ACH deal. Accertify also found that agentic checkout is still under 1% of transactions (Digital Transactions).

In a 14 October filing, the networks described objectors to their US interchange settlement as a “vocal minority” in a class of more than 12 million merchants. The final approval hearing is on 16 November (Payments Dive).

On 13 October, the PBOC approved Visa Information Technology (Beijing) to prepare a bank card clearing institution, with one year to get ready (Chinese Embassy / Xinhua; Caixin).

On 13 October, NPCI said the planned merchant discount rate on select UPI merchant payments will apply “immediately post Diwali”, with the date to be notified (NPCI; Business Standard). The proposed structure is 0.4% on P2M payments above ₹2,000, capped at ₹300, with merchants receiving under ₹1 lakh a month exempt (Indian Express). UPI handled 24.07 billion transactions worth ₹29.37 trillion in September, about 802 million a day (The Hindu).

Bank Indonesia logged 200 cross-border QRIS transactions at the Mandalika MotoGP on 9–11 October (Antara).

On 12 October, President Trump posted that Senator Roger Marshall “is working tirelessly to pass the Credit Card Competition Act, in order to stop the out of control Swipe Fee ripoff!” (NACS).

Visa’s road to Beijing

On 13 October, the People’s Bank of China approved Visa Information Technology (Beijing) Co. to begin preparing a bank card clearing institution. It sounds procedural, but it matters.

Today, Visa in China is essentially a foreign-currency brand. Its cards work for Chinese travellers abroad and for visitors paying in foreign currency, but domestic yuan clearing has belonged to UnionPay. Once fully licensed, Visa could clear and support the issuance of RMB-denominated cards for domestic payments, competing on home turf (Caixin).

There is still a long way to go. The approval is only to prepare, and Visa has a year to do it. The licence itself needs joint approval from the PBOC and the National Financial Regulatory Administration (Chinese Embassy / Xinhua). The precedents are sobering. American Express received approval in 2018 and started operations in 2020. Mastercard got its approval in 2020 and began operating in 2024. Yicai describes Visa’s vehicle as the first wholly foreign-owned bank card clearing firm to reach this stage (Yicai).

Why now? Beijing has been making payments easier for inbound visitors. In late September, Tencent launched a payments app for travellers, and Weixin Pay reported overseas e-wallet transaction value up 80.6% in January–August (Xinhua). Licensing a foreign scheme signals openness at a moment when China wants foreign tourists and business travellers spending freely.

Expectations should stay modest. In a market built around Alipay, WeChat Pay and UnionPay, a Visa-branded RMB card is more likely to compete for bank partners and for premium, cross-border-heavy customers than for the street-food QR code. For Chinese issuers, though, another scheme able to clear domestic cards could be useful leverage in fee negotiations, and for Visa it is a foothold that compounds over time.

Still, the strategic logic is clear. A domestic licence turns Visa from a toll on Chinese travel into a potential participant in the world’s largest domestic payments market. Watch for the bank partners Visa signs during the preparation year, as they will show how serious the push is.

MDR

The merchant discount rate (MDR) is the fee a merchant pays, usually as a percentage of the transaction, to accept a digital payment. It is shared among the acquirer, the issuer and the network or scheme operator. UPI merchant payments have been free for merchants, and this week’s deferral shows how hard it is to reintroduce a fee once a rail has been free (NPCI).

In September 1958, Bank of America mailed 65,000 unsolicited BankAmericards to residents of Fresno, California, in what became known as the “Fresno drop”. The programme was renamed Visa in 1976 (Wikipedia). Sixty-eight years later, that brand has a ticket to clear yuan in Beijing, pending a licence.