Visa and Brale explore private stablecoin settlement on Canton for institutional payments
Today, we're announcing a collaboration with Visa to explore one of the most important questions facing institutional stablecoin adoption: how to achieve the speed and programmability of blockchain-based settlement without sacrificing privacy.
Together, Visa and Brale will evaluate settlement using SBC, Brale's U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, on the Canton Network. The proof of concept will explore how privacy-enabled blockchain infrastructure can support faster, more programmable settlement while helping financial institutions and payment companies maintain control over the visibility of sensitive settlement transaction data.
Stablecoins have demonstrated how blockchain infrastructure can improve the speed, efficiency, and availability of money movement. But for many financial institutions, the question has never been whether stablecoins work. The question is whether they can be deployed in environments where privacy, compliance, and operational control are essential.
Why privacy matters
Most blockchain networks were designed around transparency.
That model has benefits, but it can also create challenges for institutions responsible for protecting sensitive transaction information, customer relationships, and proprietary business activity.
For financial institutions, settlement is about more than moving money. It requires maintaining confidentiality between counterparties, controlling access to transaction data, and operating within established regulatory and governance frameworks.
As stablecoin adoption expands, many institutions are evaluating how to capture the benefits of blockchain-based settlement without exposing information they would never reveal in traditional financial systems.
Privacy is one of the defining requirements for institutional adoption.
Why Canton
The Canton Network was designed with that challenge in mind.
Unlike many public blockchain networks, Canton enables participants to transact on shared infrastructure while limiting the visibility of sensitive transaction information.
Participants can benefit from interoperability and shared network effects without broadly exposing transaction data across the network.
This creates an opportunity to combine two capabilities that have historically been difficult to achieve together: the efficiency and programmability of blockchain infrastructure, and the privacy expectations that exist throughout financial markets today.
That combination makes Canton a compelling environment for exploring institutional settlement use cases.
Exploring SBC as a settlement asset
Visa currently conducts stablecoin settlement in select markets, enabling VisaNet obligations to be settled using supported stablecoins.
Through this collaboration, Visa will evaluate support for SBC as an additional stablecoin option for institutional settlement use cases.
“Stablecoin settlement has shown how blockchain infrastructure can improve the speed and efficiency of money movement. Through our work with Brale, we're exploring how SBC on the Canton Network can support institutional settlement use cases that require both programmability and strong privacy controls. This collaboration helps us evaluate what it takes to bring these capabilities into production environments.”
Because SBC is natively supported on Canton, the collaboration provides a practical way to test how privacy-preserving blockchain infrastructure can support real-world institutional payment flows.
Looking ahead
The payments industry is actively evaluating how stablecoins can improve settlement infrastructure.
The next phase of adoption will depend on combining the benefits of blockchain technology with the privacy, compliance, and interoperability standards required by financial institutions and global payment networks.
This proof of concept is an opportunity to explore what that future can look like.
If your organization is interested in settlement pilots leveraging privacy-preserving infrastructure and production use cases, let's talk.
