MoneyGram rolls out stablecoin-linked Visa card for its customer base
DeFi & Yields ·
The remittance company has introduced a Visa card tied to stablecoin balances, giving more than 60 million customers a way to spend digital dollars directly at merchants.
The card lets MoneyGram users draw on stablecoin holdings the same way they would a fiat balance, converting funds at the point of sale rather than requiring a separate cash-out step. The rollout began in Colombia, where MoneyGram issued its first stablecoin-backed Visa card through a partnership with Rain, according to The Block. News of the launch was also circulated by Rain's card team.
The underlying structure follows a pattern that has become common across the card industry: a crypto or stablecoin balance is held by the issuer, then converted to local currency automatically when the card is used, so the transaction appears to Visa's network as an ordinary fiat payment. This arrangement — sometimes called a Visa wrapper — allows companies without banking licenses of their own to still offer card spending by working through partners like Rain that handle the compliance and issuance mechanics, as outlined in Visa, Explained.
For Visa, the appeal is straightforward: the network earns interchange fees regardless of what sits behind the card, whether that is a bank deposit or a stablecoin balance, so expanding the range of assets that can settle through VisaNet fits its existing incentive to grow transaction volume. For MoneyGram, the move extends its remittance business into everyday spending, letting customers who already hold stablecoin balances use them at any merchant that accepts Visa rather than converting to cash first.
The MoneyGram launch sits within a broader wave of similar card programs. Other recent entrants include a self-custodial Bitcoin wallet adding Visa and Apple Pay spending in five states, a virtual-account integration pairing MoonPay with Moto Card for crypto-backed Visa Infinite cards offering cashback and buy-now-pay-later features, and a developer-facing tool from Crossmint and Rain that lets companies issue stablecoin-backed Visa cards without building their own banking infrastructure.
What remains unclear is how widely MoneyGram intends to expand the stablecoin card beyond Colombia, and whether it will extend to other markets within its 60 million-plus customer base. Also unresolved is which stablecoin or stablecoins the card supports and how conversion fees compare to MoneyGram's existing remittance pricing. As with earlier exchange-linked card programs, the arrangement still depends on traditional issuing-bank relationships and Visa licensing, leaving open the question of how resilient the product would be to any change in those underlying agreements.