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Points of Focus
- Lloyds settled $750,000 of live obligations with Visa in USDC over seven days, with funds arriving in under an hour.
- Lloyds ran a Canton node it operates, while Visa settled on a separate public blockchain that Lloyds did not name.
- Visa’s stablecoin settlement run rate is $20 billion annualized, so the pilot equals about 0.004% of it.
Lloyds Banking Group said on Sept. 30 that it settled $750,000 of payment obligations with Visa in USDC (USDC) during a seven-day live pilot, with funds reaching Visa in under an hour, including over a weekend, according to its press release.
LATEST: 🏦 Lloyds Banking Group and Visa completed a 7-day pilot settling $750,000 in USDC, with funds reaching Visa in under an hour, including over the weekend. pic.twitter.com/UtiBjYIiLB
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) September 30, 2026
Lloyds calls it the first stablecoin settlement trial between Visa and a major UK banking group. The pilot covered settlement, the process in which institutions exchange funds behind payments, and not how payments are initiated.
Lloyds Visa USDC settlement pilot used live obligations over seven days
Lloyds bought USDC through Archax, a UK-regulated digital asset exchange, to complete a series of US dollar settlement obligations. The volume was booked through Lloyds’ Corporate Markets branch in Jersey and then transferred to Visa in the US. Lloyds said traditional cross-border settlement can take a day or more when initiated outside banking hours.
Peter Left, head of digital assets at Lloyds, said that settling live obligations “has allowed us to move beyond theory and test these capabilities in a real-world setting.”
Lloyds said better visibility over funds and less liquidity tied up waiting for settlement could matter most over weekends and holidays. The bank said it assessed speed, transparency, and operational processes during the trial.
Canton and public blockchain interoperability tested in the pilot
Lloyds used a node it operates on Canton, citing the network’s configurable privacy, while Visa supported settlement on a separate public blockchain. Lloyds did not name that blockchain, and the release gives no per-transaction timings or fees. Lloyds said the test showed interoperability across both networks and that Visa can help reduce the complexity of stablecoin settlement for institutions.
Rob Cameron, group country manager for the UK and Ireland at Visa, said the pilot shows stablecoins can work alongside existing banking infrastructure and give institutions more choice over how and when they settle funds. The release adds that the pilot is part of Lloyds’ wider work on digital assets and tokenized money, and it gives no production timeline.
Visa stablecoin settlement volume has passed a $20-billion run rate
Visa said on Sept. 8 that its stablecoin settlement annualized run rate had passed $20 billion, up more than 15 times year-on-year, with more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs on its network and card payment volume up nearly 200%.
Its Dec. 16, 2025, launch release cited $3.5 billion as of Nov. 30, 2025, with USDC settlement on Solana for US partners Cross River Bank and Lead Bank.
Lloyds tokenized deposits, and Bank of England stablecoin rules add UK context
Lloyds has used Canton before. It completed what it called the UK’s first public blockchain transaction using tokenized deposits, buying a tokenized gilt from Archax, according to its earlier release.
The Bank of England published a policy statement and draft Code of Practice for sterling systemic stablecoins on June 22. It replaced individual holding limits with a 40-billion-British-pound issuance guardrail per issuer, and the rules apply to sterling issuers, not to USDC.
The draft also lets issuers hold up to 70% of backing assets in short-term UK government debt, up from 60%, with the remainder in central bank deposits. The bank expects to publish its final code by the end of 2026, with operations starting in 2027.
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