Yellow Card and Visa partner to support stablecoin adoption

The two companies will collaborate to research stablecoin use cases that help improve treasury operations, liquidity management, and money movement across borders, and where Yellow Card is licensed to operate.

New use-cases for stablecoins

Yellow Card is a licensed stablecoin on- and off-ramp in Africa and beyond. Its mission is to support businesses of all sizes in making international payments, managing their treasury, and accessing USD liquidity by leveraging stablecoins. The company operates in over 20 African countries and offers access to secure, compliant, and accessible stablecoin products for developers, businesses, and individuals.

The company partnered with Visa to help stablecoin technologies emerge in global economies, as traditional payment companies are seeking to deploy them. Visa aims to enable faster and more accessible digital payments in the CEMEA region, believing that institutions that move money need a stablecoin strategy. As more players explore this new technology, Visa is committed to supporting its partners in navigating the transformation, bridging the scale, trust, and development needed to build the NextGen of global payments.

The initiative has the potential to strengthen Yellow Card’s role as a financial gateway and infrastructure provider in emerging markets. This partnership comes after the company collaborated with Lightspark to improve payments in Africa by integrating Yellow Card’s Payments API with Lightspark Extend, enabling businesses and individuals on the Universal Money Address (UMA) network to send and receive payments in 20 African countries.

The crypto regulatory environment on the continent

Countries in Africa adopt different approaches to crypto and stablecoins. Nigeria, South Africa, and other countries have taken proper steps to regulate crypto, while many other nations remain restrictive or passive in their approach, leading to market uncertainty. For instance, Nigeria’s Central Bank has prohibited commercial banks from facilitating crypto transactions until 2023, but the country remains a leader in crypto adoption, with an estimated 10.3% of its population owning digital assets.