Antônia Souza, Visa's Director of Digital Currencies for Latin America and the Caribbean, stated on the Latam Desk podcast that stablecoins are not competing with Brazil's PIX instant payment system. Souza emphasized the two technologies serve distinct purposes: PIX handles real-time domestic payments while stablecoins facilitate cross-border transactions. She highlighted Visa's development of the Visa Connector for PIX transactions, demonstrating the company views instant-payment rails and stablecoin infrastructure as complementary systems.
Visa Positions Stablecoins and PIX as Complementary Payment Systems
Souza explained that PIX is built for real-time everyday payments, while stablecoins are meant for cross-border flows such as sending money abroad or storing dollars. Visa has been developing the Visa Connector, a payment initiator that helps initiate PIX transactions, because the company sees the instant-payment rail and the stablecoin rail as complementary rather than competing.
The exception, Souza said, is countries without a massive instant-payment system. In Colombia, a peso-backed stablecoin is helping people make instant payments because they lack a solution on the scale of Brazil's PIX. Elsewhere, she stressed, most stablecoin activity runs on USD stablecoins and is focused on cross-border transactions, not daily routine spending.
Souza Criticizes Applying Stablecoin Technology to Every Use Case
Souza stated she is "totally against that type of approach," criticizing market attempts to apply stablecoins to everything. Her point of view, which she said she pushes with Visa's own clients, is to concentrate on the problems only stablecoins can solve, arguing that focus alone opens a large enough market to work with.
Brazil Crypto Investors Exceed Stock Exchange Participants
Souza underlined a data point: Brazil now has more crypto investors than its B3 stock exchange. Adoption in the region, she said, is driven by both regulation and actual usage, with Brazil, Mexico and Argentina among the largest markets even against the global average. The landscape remains uneven, she added, with some countries still barring financial institutions from working with crypto while Brazil advances its framework.
Visa Connects Traditional Banks to Stablecoin Infrastructure
Souza said she has been talking with major banks from Brazil to the Caribbean, and that interest is real, but so are the doubts about integrating with legacy systems, protecting against fraud and scams, and controlling the source of funds. Because Visa has engaged with crypto for more than ten years, the strategy is to integrate stablecoins into its networks and offer banks a path that is "already scalable, that's already trustable by the market, by the ecosystem."
She also agreed with Visa CPO Jack Forestell that stablecoins are gaining meaningful traction while still not being plug-and-play for payments. "It needs interoperability, security, compliance, infrastructure capabilities. And this is not something that is quite ready yet," she said.
Visa Stablecoin Settlement Pilot Reaches $7 Billion Run Rate
Souza pointed to Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot, which has reached a $7 billion annualized run rate. The model lets issuers and acquirers settle international obligations directly in stablecoins, without converting to fiat, enabling settlement seven days a week and reducing collateral requirements.
Globally, Visa has more than 140 stablecoin card programs live, most operated by fintechs, with Lemon Cash cited as an example in Latin America and Puerto Rico flagged as one of the region's biggest hubs.
Looking ahead, she named the convergence of instant payments, digital wallets, tokenized assets, stablecoins and artificial intelligence as the defining shift of the next five years, projecting AI agents that pay on a user's behalf with stablecoins, and citing Visa's partnership with Tempo, a blockchain built for agentic payments.
FAQ
What did Antônia Souza say about stablecoins and PIX?
Antônia Souza, Visa's Director of Digital Currencies for Latin America and the Caribbean, stated on the Latam Desk podcast that stablecoins are not here to fight against PIX. She explained that PIX is built for real-time everyday payments, while stablecoins are meant for cross-border flows such as sending money abroad or storing dollars.
How large is Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot?
Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot has reached a $7 billion annualized run rate. The model lets issuers and acquirers settle international obligations directly in stablecoins, without converting to fiat, enabling settlement seven days a week and reducing collateral requirements.
How many stablecoin card programs does Visa operate globally?
Visa has more than 140 stablecoin card programs live globally, most operated by fintechs. Lemon Cash was cited as an example in Latin America, and Puerto Rico was flagged as one of the region's biggest hubs.
