Payment Expert’s Fintech Unwrapped delivers the latest developing news that has shaped the sector over the course of the last week.
This week, Visa continues to delve deeper into stablecoin adoption by launching a stablecoin card programme accessible in more than 100 countries in partnership with Reap.
Also this week, Wero gets a major exposure boost by landing on Europe’s second-largest neobank, Bybit’s latest partner looks to unlock fiat conversion friction, Form3 moves into agentic payments, and ACI Worldwide aims to streamline tokenised deposits on Swift.
Visa and Reap’s plan to make stablecoin’s go global
Reap and Visa launched a global stablecoin card programme accessible in more than 100 markets to offer an alternative payment method.
The collaboration sees Reap leverage Visa’s credit card infrastructure to launch and scale the stablecoin card programme to partners, enabling card network authorisation, processing, compliance framework accessibility and operations.
Reap offers credit card programmes where stablecoins are used to fund and manage spending. Partners can use stablecoins as collateral, enable cardholders to repay balances in stablecoins and support cross-border corporate spending with compliance and program management built in.
Partners can spend via the stablecoin card programme at 175 million Visa merchant locations worldwide which accept Visa.
Daren Guo, Co-Founder at Reap, said: “Stablecoins opened the door, but the real unlock is the compliant infrastructure pathway that this creates for any company, anywhere in the world, to issue cards and scale through a single partnership.”
bunq to expand Wero’s European reach
Europe’s digital payment method Wero is set for greater exposure after the region’s second-largest neobank, bunq, has become the first bank to make it available across four key markets.
bunq will make Wero available in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands for person-to-person payments and at the online checkout.
Customers can use their phone numbers to send money to recipients in the aforementioned four countries via their bunq personal and/or business accounts. Wero will be available at the checkout at selected merchants that offer the payment method, with no card details required.
Joe Wilson, Chief Evangelist at bunq, said: “bunq’s progress in implementation is helping extend Wero to a new, digital-first user base.
“By enabling cross-border transfers through Wero, bunq users gain access to a simple and secure payment experience with Wero’s ecosystem of 60 million users and counting.”
Bybit seeks fiat clarity with OpenPayd
Global cryptocurrency exchange Bybit selected OpenPayd to connect to traditional fiat payment rails such as Swift to support on/off ramping.
In a bid to boost its global fiat settlement flows, Bybit will leverage OpenPayd’s virtual IBANs to connect to international payment rails to enable the crypto exchange to perform on/off ramping of settlements using fiat and digital currencies.
Victoria Kilikyan, Deputy Head of Fiat at Bybit, said: “Fiat access remains a critical part of the crypto experience, and improving the connection between traditional banking and digital assets is part of our mission to drive broader adoption.
“Bybit will focus on consolidating US dollar payment flows and foreign exchange within OpenPayd’s unified infrastructure to improve reconciliation, reduce reliance on multiple providers and predict the scalability of fiat and digital currencies.
“Our integration with OpenPayd unlocks greater access, enabling eligible users to fund their accounts in US dollars through simple bank transfers, while delivering the reliable infrastructure required by our institutional clients,” added Kilikyan.
Form3’s embraces evolution with agentic payment launch
Form3 launched agentic payments for banks in an evolution of its infrastructure driven by AI agents using Natural Language Processing.
The new approach will allow authorised AI agents and humans using Natural Language Processing to retrieve and interpret key payment information within an AI interface, helping bank operations teams to resolve payment issues.
The initial phase uses a Model Context Protocol adaptor, a standardised way for AI platforms and agents to connect with external tools and data. The Form3 adaptor will make existing payment information usable by authorised AI agents through the API, while simultaneously keeping the AI outside of the payment flow.
Mike Walters, CEO of Form3, said: “Every payment tells a story. Behind it is a person receiving a salary, a business paying a supplier, a family buying a home or someone splitting a dinner bill. Every one of these payments is critical and cannot afford to fail.
“We are thrilled to be launching our agent-ready infrastructure that will enable our customers to deliver faster answers and resolution for customers, lower their operational costs and future-proof their payments operations.”
ACI Worldwide works with Swift for interoperable tokenised deposit settlement
ACI Worldwide is the latest financial firm to connect to Swift’s blockchain-based ledger, moving tokenised deposits across borders via its cloud-native payments hub, ACI Connetic.
Banks will be able to move tokenised deposits leveraging Swift’s blockchain ledger, alongside traditional payment flows, to settle, reconcile and control payments.
With tokenised deposits surging in banks’ interest, ACI Connetic seeks to remove multiple manual handling of the process by handling both the traditional and blockchain settlements.
Craig Ramsey, SVP, Head of Account-to-Account Payments at ACI Worldwide, said: “Digital assets should extend a bank’s payment capabilities, not force it to build a second payment operation.
“Banks need a practical way to operationalize tokenised deposits at scale using the people, controls and processes they already trust. With ACI Connetic, payments orchestrated through Swift’s ledger can be managed alongside other payment flows within a common operational framework.”
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