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.

What happened

Lloyds Banking Group and Visa completed a 7-day pilot settling $750,000 in USDC, and funds reached Visa in under an hour, including over the weekend.

Confirmed

Global impact / market context

Faster settlement means money moves between companies in under an hour instead of days, which can reduce the cash companies must hold for pending payments and lower costs tied to delayed transfers.

Analyst inference

This pilot shows large banks and payment networks testing stablecoin settlement, which means using a digital token pegged to a currency. If adopted widely, it could shift how payments are cleared and settled.

Analyst inference

What to watch

1. Watch whether Lloyds Banking Group and Visa disclose results from this 7-day pilot, including whether settlement stayed under one hour across all days tested. Confirmed
2. Watch whether the companies expand the pilot to more transactions, add other currencies besides USDC, or invite additional banks and merchants to test the same settlement method. Proposed
3. Watch whether Lloyds and Visa extend the USDC settlement pilot beyond seven days or raise the $750,000 amount, which would show whether this method can handle larger real payment flows. Analyst inference

Affected assets

• CMC20 — CoinMarketCap 20 Index DTF
• USDC — USD Coin

Evidence

• x.com