Lloyds and Visa Settle $750,000 in USDC in Cross-Border Pilot

Lloyds Banking Group and Visa ran a seven-day pilot that settled $750,000 in USDC for cross-border payments. According to the report, the trial moved funds from Jersey to the United States in under an hour, including transactions processed during a weekend. The participants used separate blockchain infrastructures for the test: Lloyds settled via the Canton network while Visa used a different blockchain.

The pilot focused on settlement speed and operational feasibility for using stablecoins in international transfers. Reported settlement times of under an hour contrast with typical multi-day timelines associated with traditional correspondent banking, though the pilot covered a limited set of transactions and conditions.

Each participant operated on its own on-chain rail during the test rather than sharing a single network. The report does not provide details on liquidity provisioning, counterparty arrangements, regulatory approvals, or the exact technical setup beyond naming Canton for Lloyds and a separate blockchain for Visa.

Organisations running such pilots aim to evaluate whether tokenized reserves and on-chain settlement can reduce friction in cross-border payments. While the reported result shows faster end-to-end settlement in this instance, the pilot's narrow scope means further testing would be required to assess scalability, costs, and compliance implications across broader use cases.