Visa unveils Intelligent Commerce, expands stablecoin settlement pilots with Nium, and rolls out Scan to Pay across Asia Pacific
SINGAPORE, November 12, 2025 — Visa is cementing its position at the forefront of digital payment transformation with a trio of major announcements unveiled at the Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) 2025. The global payments leader showcased its expanding footprint in artificial intelligence–driven commerce, blockchain-based stablecoin settlement, and regional QR payment solutions, signalling how financial institutions and merchants can prepare for the next wave of intelligent, inclusive, and quantum-ready payments innovation.
AI-Powered Future: Visa Intelligent Commerce Goes Regional
Visa’s Intelligent Commerce initiative — a framework connecting consumers, merchants, and AI agents — has expanded across Asia Pacific to power what the company calls the next evolution of “agentic commerce”, where AI-powered assistants can make purchases on behalf of users.
Through a suite of integrated APIs built on Visa’s secure payment infrastructure, Intelligent Commerce enables AI agents to authenticate, tokenise, and complete transactions transparently and securely. At its core is the new Trusted Agent Protocol, a system that allows merchants to verify legitimate AI agents through agent-specific cryptographic signatures, preventing fraud and preserving trust between consumers and retailers.
“Agentic commerce is transforming the very fabric of online transactions,” said T.R. Ramachandran, Visa’s Head of Products and Solutions for Asia Pacific. “With Visa Intelligent Commerce and its cornerstone, the Trusted Agent Protocol, we’re ensuring every AI-powered purchase is secure, verified, and transparent.”
Visa is partnering with major global players such as Microsoft, Stripe, Tencent, Ant International, Perplexity, LG Uplus, and Stripe to advance this ecosystem. The company plans to pilot AI commerce transactions across Asia Pacific by early 2026, aligning with regulatory and market readiness.
Nium Joins Visa’s Stablecoin Settlement Pilot
Highlighting blockchain’s growing role in the financial system, Visa also announced the participation of Singapore-based fintech Nium in its stablecoin settlement pilot, an initiative allowing Visa’s partners to fulfil settlement obligations using Circle’s USDC across supported blockchains.
The collaboration aims to modernise cross-border money movement by enabling near-instant, programmable settlements — a marked improvement over traditional batch-based clearing systems that are subject to delays due to time zones, weekends, and bank processing windows.
“Businesses have long been constrained by settlement cycles that move at the cadence of clearing schemes and banks, not at the speed of global commerce,” said Alex Johnson, Chief Payments Officer at Nium. “By settling with Visa via stablecoins, we’re aligning payments to the speed of the internet.”
Visa’s Nischint Sanghavi, Head of Digital Currencies for Asia Pacific, said the initiative will allow Visa partners to settle up to seven days a week, bridging the gap between traditional finance and blockchain-based digital rails. The pilot represents another step in Visa’s multi-year effort to integrate stablecoin and digital currency capabilities into its payment network, driving interoperability and reducing costs for cross-border transfers.
Scan to Pay: Scaling QR Payments Across Asia Pacific
Rounding out its announcements, Visa revealed the launch of Visa Scan to Pay, a solution that enables millions of merchants across Asia Pacific to accept Visa payments through QR codes.
The rollout, part of the company’s broader Visa Pay ecosystem, connects participating digital wallets and bank apps to Visa’s global merchant network — enabling consumers to tap, scan, or pay online with their preferred wallets whether they’re shopping in Singapore, Tokyo, or Sydney.
Visa has partnered with a wide range of payment players including Samsung Wallet, LINE Pay, VNPT Money, Woori Card, Hyundai Card, FOMO Pay, VNPAY, Lakala, NextPay, and OpenRice, covering markets from Singapore and Hong Kong to Vietnam and Korea.
“As commerce across Asia Pacific becomes increasingly mobile-first, Visa is leading the way with innovations like Scan to Pay that accelerate QR payment adoption,” said T.R. Ramachandran. “By enabling millions of merchants to accept seamless and secure payments, we’re empowering consumers with more flexible ways to pay — anytime, anywhere.”
The service not only simplifies consumer experience but also lowers costs for merchants by leveraging existing QR infrastructure, expanding reach to international visitors, and streamlining operations.
A Unified Vision for the Future of Finance
From AI-powered “agentic” payments to blockchain-based stablecoin settlements and frictionless QR commerce, Visa’s multi-pronged approach underscores its role in shaping the digital payment ecosystem of tomorrow. The convergence of these technologies — showcased at the Singapore FinTech Festival 2025 — reflects the company’s mission to connect global economies through secure, innovative, and inclusive financial infrastructure.
Together, these innovations move Visa closer to realising a future where payments are intelligent, interoperable, and instant — across every device, agent, and network.