Visa Teams With Canton Network to Preserve Blockchain Privacy

The move, announced Wednesday (March 25), makes Visa the first major global payments firm to serve in this role, helping bring privacy‑preserving blockchain infrastructure to banks and financial institutions.

“That move goes straight to a core challenge for financial institutions: the same transparency that gives blockchains their appeal can clash with privacy expectations financial institutions operate under,” Visa said in a news release.

“Canton Network, a blockchain built for regulated finance, has privacy built in from the beginning, so organizations can use shared infrastructure without exposing sensitive information.”

Visa says it will be one of 40 Super Validators on Canton, helping clients who run and secure operations on the network by applying the same standards it uses on payment systems.

This will let financial institutions (FIs) experiment with and scale things like stablecoin payments without changing how they already manage risk, compliance and operations, the release added.

Rubail Birwadker, head of growth products and strategic partnerships at Visa, noted in the release that many banks see a lack of privacy as a roadblock to moving “meaningful activity” onto the blockchain.

“By operating as a Super Validator on Canton Network, we’re bringing Visa-grade trust, governance and operational rigor that define Visa’s global network to privacy‑preserving blockchain infrastructure, so regulated FIs can bring payments onchain without having to rethink how they operate,” he said.

In other blockchain news, recent PYMNTS research shows that while chief financial officers are embracing stablecoins, they would prefer to work with banks rather than crypto-native wallets or FinTech intermediaries.

“Trust in the channel, it turns out, matters for finance chiefs, and banks offer familiar controls, integrated reporting and compliance guardrails that plug into existing treasury workflows,” PYMNTS wrote last week.

“Crypto-native wallets, while efficient, introduce unfamiliar risks: private key management, fragmented reporting, uncertain custody standards and evolving regulatory interpretations.”

By contrast, banks offer a layer of trust that finance chiefs already understand. They provide established custody frameworks, standardized reporting and compliance processes in line with audit requirements. When stablecoins are accessed via a bank, they are essentially wrapped in the institutional safeguards that finance teams rely on.

The research, from the report “Stablecoins Gain Ground: Why CFOs See More Promise There Than in Crypto,” found that 42% of middle market companies say they’ve discussed, tested or used stablecoins, while 13% report actual stablecoin use.