Lloyds Banking Group and Visa have completed a seven (7)-day pilot using USDC for $750,000 in cross-border settlements.
The trial involved real U.S. dollar obligations between Lloyds’ Corporate Markets branch in Jersey and Visa in the United States.
Lloyds purchased USDC through Archax, a UK-regulated digital asset exchange, before transferring the funds to Visa.
Lloyds said Visa received the settlement funds in under one hour, including transactions completed during the weekend.
The pilot tested whether Lloyds could use USDC to settle payment obligations when traditional banking systems were outside normal operating hours.
Lloyds and Visa used the trial to settle obligations between financial institutions rather than test USDC payments by consumers.
Customers did not use USDC to pay merchants during the seven-day exercise. Instead, Lloyds used the pilot to test whether USDC could help complete and reconcile cross-border payment obligations between financial institutions.
The companies described the exercise as their first stablecoin settlement pilot together involving a major UK banking group.
However, the test did not mark Visa’s first use of USDC for settlement. Visa has worked with USDC for several years and launched U.S. institutional settlement using the stablecoin in 2025.
Lloyds and Visa have not announced plans to launch commercial stablecoin settlement services after completing the pilot.
Lloyds and Visa Test USDC Across Separate Blockchain Networks
The pilot also tested settlement across different blockchain networks. Lloyds operated its own node on Canton Network and used the network’s configurable privacy features. Visa supported settlement through a separate public blockchain.
Lloyds and Visa used separate blockchain networks to test whether they could complete settlement without adopting the same blockchain.
The arrangement allowed both companies to examine whether different blockchain environments could support the same institutional settlement process. Visa had also tested private stablecoin settlement through Canton with Brale.
That earlier Visa trial used Brale’s SBC dollar for institutional settlement on Canton Network.
The test examined how blockchain infrastructure could support private transactions between financial institutions.
Visa has also developed stablecoin settlement infrastructure for financial institutions using its existing payments network.
Lloyds has separately tested tokenized deposits and other blockchain-based financial systems for institutional transactions.
Peter Left, Lloyds Banking Group’s head of digital assets, said the pilot showed how digital money could work in real payment transactions.
“We’re seeing how digital money could help make international payments faster, more transparent and more flexible for businesses.”
Left said clearer fund movements could help businesses manage liquidity. He also said blockchain interoperability could support wider digital-money use.
Meanwhile, Visa said financial institutions could use stablecoins alongside their existing banking infrastructure for settlement.
Lloyds Expands Its Digital Money Tests
Lloyds has tested other blockchain-based forms of money before the latest USDC pilot.
The bank previously worked with tokenized sterling deposits on Canton Network.
It also completed live tokenized deposit transactions alongside Barclays and NatWest.
The bank has also participated in Project Agorá, which tested digital money across several currencies.
Lloyds completed three live Project Agorá transactions involving sterling, euros and Swiss francs.
