Visa Survey Shows Americans Would Use Stablecoins With Bank Protections
Quick Look
Visa's Money Travels 2026 report finds that while most Americans are unfamiliar with stablecoins, willingness to use them for international transfers increases significantly when paired with bank-level fraud protection and deposit insurance, rising from 36% to 56% in the U.S. and from 34% to 74% in Latin America.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies pegged to stable assets like the U.S. dollar to avoid price volatility, but they currently lack FDIC insurance and widespread public understanding.
Most Americans still don't know what a stablecoin is. Offer them the safety net of a bank account, though, and a majority say they'd use one.
That's the principal finding from Visa's Money Travels 2026 report, released Wednesday. In a hypothetical scenario where stablecoins came with bank-level fraud protection and deposit insurance, the share of Americans willing to use them for international transfers jumped from 36% to 56%, the payments giant said.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies pegged to a stable asset, usually the U.S. dollar, and designed to avoid Bitcoin-style price swings. They don't carry FDIC insurance, and Visa stressed that its scenario doesn't suggest such protections exist or are coming.
Familiarity is the bigger hurdle. Some 56% of U.S. respondents had never heard of stablecoins, and many who had wrongly assumed they fluctuate like Bitcoin.
The provider matters, too. Interest rose to 45% when stablecoins were offered through an existing financial provider. About six in 10 Americans said they'd trust a traditional bank (61%) or a global payment network (60%) with digital currency services. Visa, of course, is one of the latter.
The trend held outside the United States as well. In Latin America, willingness more than doubled from 34% to 74% with protections in place. Morning Consult ran the survey from Feb. 24 to March 2, polling 45,445 people across 20 markets, including 2,192 U.S. adults.
Visa says scams loom large as well. Some 36% of U.S. remitters said they'd encountered a cross-border payment scam, and 44% worry about AI deepfakes impersonating family members.
"Our research shows what matters most to those who rely on that lifeline: trust," said Vira Platonova, global head of Visa Direct.
Visa has been laying stablecoin rails for years. Its stablecoin settlement volume hit an annualized rate above $20 billion. That's up from a $3.5 billion run rate when it began U.S. settlement in USDC on Solana last December. In August, Visa Direct added stablecoin payouts through Zerohash.
What to Watch
AI outlook — possibilities, not facts
Visa will expand stablecoin settlement volume beyond $20 billion annualized rate in 2026.
Likely · Within months
More traditional banks will explore offering stablecoin services with consumer protections.
Possible · Within months
Open Questions
- Will regulatory frameworks for stablecoin consumer protections be developed?
- Which financial institutions are most likely to offer protected stablecoin services first?
- How will traditional banks respond to growing consumer interest in digital currency services?
