Financial giant Lloyds tests 24/7 USDC settlement with Visa
Lloyds Banking Group and Visa have completed their first settlement pilot using the USDC stablecoin. Over seven days, the British banking group settled $750,000 in payment obligations with Visa, with funds arriving in under an hour, including over the weekend.
According to a press release, Lloyds purchased USDC through Archax, a regulated digital asset platform in the U.K. The funds were booked through Lloyds Corporate Markets in Jersey before being transferred to Visa in the U.S.
The companies stressed that the test focused on interbank settlement rather than how customers pay for goods or services. Its purpose was to determine whether stablecoins could accelerate cross-border transfers and reduce dependence on traditional banking hours.
Lloyds and Visa test round-the-clock settlement
During the seven-day pilot, the companies conducted a series of live U.S. dollar transactions. Settlement using USDC took less than an hour even on weekends, while a traditional cross-border transfer initiated outside banking hours can take a day or longer.
Lloyds believes round-the-clock settlement could simplify liquidity management for banks and corporate clients. Financial institutions could gain greater certainty over when funds will arrive and reduce the amount of capital tied up while waiting for transactions to settle.
The companies also tested interoperability between private and public blockchain infrastructure. Lloyds used its own node on the Canton Network with configurable privacy mechanisms, while Visa handled settlement through a separate public blockchain.
Lloyds Head of Digital Assets Peter Left said the experiment allowed the bank to move from theoretical exploration of the technology to settling real payment obligations. He said stablecoins are particularly promising for cross-border transactions, where interactions between different markets, currencies and infrastructure increase settlement time and complexity.
Banks test transfers beyond traditional banking hours
The Lloyds and Visa pilot is part of a broader trend toward using tokenized money for international settlement. Major banks are exploring ways to process transactions around the clock without waiting for banking systems in different jurisdictions to open.
On September 7, Citi and DBS conducted a cross-border U.S. dollar payment between Singapore and the U.S. over the weekend using Swift infrastructure. To move funds outside traditional banking hours, the financial institutions used tokenized deposits.
The transaction took several minutes instead of the up to two business days required for some traditional international transfers. The experiment showed that banks are considering not only stablecoins but also tokenized bank money as a way to accelerate cross-border settlement.
Earlier, we reported that Lloyds' chief financial officer sold £10.2 million worth of shares in the banking group. The transaction came as the lender's market value continued to rise.
-
Afghanistan
-
Albania
-
Algeria
-
Angola
-
Argentina
-
Armenia
-
Australia
-
Austria
-
Azerbaijan
-
Bahamas
-
Bahrain
-
Bangladesh
-
Belarus
-
Belgium
-
Bolivia
-
Botswana
-
Brazil
-
Brunei
-
Bulgaria
-
Cambodia
-
Cameroon
-
Canada
-
Chile
-
China
-
Colombia
-
Congo
-
Costa Rica
-
Cote d'Ivoire
-
Croatia
-
Cuba
-
Cyprus
-
Czechia
-
DR Congo
-
Denmark
-
Dominican Republic
-
Ecuador
-
Egypt
-
El Salvador
-
Estonia
-
Eswatini
-
Ethiopia
-
Finland
-
France
-
Georgia
-
Germany
-
Ghana
-
Greece
-
Haiti
-
Hong Kong
-
Hungary
-
India
-
Indonesia
-
Iran, Islamic republic
-
Iraq
-
Ireland
-
Israel
-
Italy
-
Jamaica
-
Japan
-
Jordan
-
Kazakhstan
-
Kenya
-
Korea
-
Kuwait
-
Kyrgyzstan
-
Laos
-
Latvia
-
Lebanon
-
Lesotho
-
Libya
-
Lithuania
-
Luxembourg
-
Madagascar
-
Malaysia
-
Malta
-
Mauritius
-
Mexico
-
Moldova
-
Mongolia
-
Montenegro
-
Morocco
-
Mozambique
-
Myanmar
-
Namibia
-
Nepal
-
Netherlands
-
New Zealand
-
Nigeria
-
North Macedonia
-
Norway
-
Oman
-
Pakistan
-
Palestine
-
Panama
-
Papua New Guinea
-
Paraguay
-
Peru
-
Philippines
-
Poland
-
Portugal
-
Puerto Rico
-
Qatar
-
Reunion
-
Romania
-
Rwanda
-
Saudi Arabia
-
Serbia
-
Singapore
-
Slovakia
-
Slovenia
-
Somalia
-
South Africa
-
Spain
-
Sri Lanka
-
Sweden
-
Switzerland
-
Syria
-
Taiwan
-
Tajikistan
-
Tanzania
-
Thailand
-
Trinidad and Tobago
-
Tunisia
-
Turkey
-
UAE
-
Uganda
-
Ukraine
-
United Kingdom
-
United States
-
Uruguay
-
Uzbekistan
-
Venezuela
-
Vietnam
-
Yemen
-
Zambia
-
Zimbabwe
- Forex
- Crypto
