[Digital Today reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] Visa is speeding up efforts to integrate stablecoins into its existing payments infrastructure.

According to a recent Reuters report, Visa's head of crypto Cuy Sheffield said, "Even if stablecoins are adopted as a payment technology, to be used in practice they need to be connected to the existing merchant network," adding that "Visa's role is becoming more important."

Visa is already running a settlement pilot programme linked to Circle's USDC with some U.S. banks. The pilot aims to digitise interbank settlement using stablecoins.

Visa stablecoin settlement transactions are running at an annualised pace of about $4.5 billion. That is small compared with total payment volume of $14.2 trillion, but it is growing rapidly each month.

Sheffield reiterated that, given merchant adoption has not yet happened at scale, the Visa network is key to the use of stablecoins.

Total stablecoin circulation has grown to more than $270 billion from $120 billion two years ago, but the flow into actual payments remains limited.

Against this backdrop, major banks such as Goldman Sachs, Citi and UBS, as well as European financial institutions such as ING and UniCredit, are reviewing issuing their own stablecoins. Euro-linked stablecoins centred on Europe are also drawing attention as a way to counter the U.S. dollar-centred digital payments market. Sheffield said, "The stablecoin story does not necessarily have to be limited to the dollar," and he also noted the growth potential of euro-based stablecoins.