The Singapore-based payments infrastructure firm has unveiled an enterprise platform that lets any business holding stablecoins issue spending cards across both major card networks through a single API, accelerating the convergence of digital dollars and traditional payments.
Singapore-based payments infrastructure company Nium on 30 March unveiled what it describes as the first enterprise-grade platform capable of issuing stablecoin-funded spending cards on both the Visa and Mastercard networks through a single application programming interface. The product enables any business holding stablecoins — whether a crypto exchange, a fintech lender, a gig-economy platform, or a corporate treasury — to deploy branded physical and virtual debit cards that convert digital dollar balances into fiat at the point of sale, reaching hundreds of millions of merchant locations worldwide. The launch represents a significant step in the convergence of stablecoin infrastructure and traditional card payment rails, arriving at a moment when stablecoin transfer volume is on pace to exceed $35 trillion in 2026.
Technical Architecture and Speed to Market
Nium's platform addresses what has historically been one of the most friction-laden processes in the digital payments industry. Issuing a card programme on even one network typically requires months of integration work, regulatory licensing across multiple jurisdictions, compliance infrastructure for know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering requirements, and ongoing settlement management. Building across both Visa and Mastercard simultaneously has traditionally required separate integrations with each network, doubling the engineering and compliance burden.
The new platform collapses this process into a single API connection. Nium handles the card issuance, network connectivity, regulatory compliance, and fiat settlement internally, drawing on 40-plus regulatory licences spanning more than 190 countries. The company claims that time to market for a stablecoin card programme has been reduced from several months to as few as five days. The platform also integrates with Nium's existing 190-country payout network, enabling businesses to deploy stablecoin balances not only via cards but also through bank transfers, mobile wallets, and real-time payment systems without managing separate vendor relationships.
Why Dual-Network Matters
The dual-network capability carries strategic significance that extends beyond engineering convenience. In many markets, merchant acceptance skews heavily toward one network or the other. Across Latin America and parts of Southeast Asia, Mastercard maintains stronger acceptance in certain merchant categories, while Visa dominates in North America and Western Europe. For a global fintech or crypto platform seeking to offer spending cards to a geographically diverse user base, single-network limitation creates coverage gaps that undermine the product's utility. By spanning both networks from day one, Nium eliminates the need for businesses to choose — or to maintain parallel programmes with different providers.
The platform also allows issuers to offer cardholders a choice of network at the point of enrolment, or to default to the optimal network based on the user's geography. This flexibility is particularly relevant for cross-border use cases — such as freelancers paid in stablecoins spending abroad, or corporate travel programmes funded from stablecoin treasury positions — where network acceptance varies by country and merchant category.
Market Context: Stablecoin Payments at an Inflection Point
Nium's launch arrives amid an acceleration of stablecoin integration into traditional payment infrastructure. Mastercard agreed in March to acquire BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure specialist, for up to $1.8 billion — the largest stablecoin-focused acquisition on record. Visa's contactless payment stack, which can integrate on-chain settlement, now accounts for 80 per cent of all in-person transaction volume globally. Monthly crypto card spending rose from approximately $100 million in early 2023 to roughly $1.5 billion by late 2025, implying an annualised volume of approximately $18 billion — a fifteen-fold increase in under three years.
The regulatory environment has also shifted decisively in favour of stablecoin payment use cases. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, established the first US federal framework for payment stablecoins, while the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation has been fully operational since mid-2025. These frameworks provide the legal certainty that card networks, banks, and payment processors require before committing infrastructure investment to stablecoin-related products.
Implications for the Payments Industry
Nium's platform has implications for several constituencies. For crypto-native companies, it offers a straightforward path to enabling real-world spending without building payments infrastructure from scratch. For traditional fintechs and neobanks, it provides a mechanism to offer stablecoin accounts and cards as a product feature, potentially capturing a growing segment of users who hold digital dollar balances. For corporate treasurers exploring stablecoin positions for cross-border settlement efficiency, the card layer adds a spending capability that was previously missing from the stablecoin toolkit.
Nium's existing infrastructure already issues 38 million card tokens annually for banks, fintechs, and enterprises. The extension to stablecoin-funded issuance leverages this existing scale rather than building from zero, which should allow rapid adoption among Nium's current client base. Industry observers will be watching adoption metrics, transaction volumes, and whether competing infrastructure providers — including Marqeta, Galileo, and Stripe's Issuing product — follow with equivalent stablecoin capabilities in the months ahead. The race to become the default infrastructure layer for stablecoin-to-fiat conversion at the point of sale has begun in earnest.
