Payments giant Visa will join the Canton Network blockchain as a super validator, enabling banks and financial institutions to carry out privacy-preserving blockchain transactions without violating compliance requirements.
Visa will become the first global payment system among the validators of the enterprise blockchain Canton Network. The initiative aims to eliminate one of the key barriers to institutional adoption of decentralized solutions — the conflict between the transparency of public blockchains and privacy requirements.
The Canton Network was designed for regulated financial institutions and enables transactions without disclosing sensitive data.
Visa will be one of 40 super validators. In this role, the payments giant will support network operations, contribute to infrastructure development, participate in governance, and help clients integrate on-chain payments, including settlements, treasury operations, and the use of stablecoins, without changing existing compliance and risk management procedures.
Visa’s participation significantly expands the Canton Network’s functionality, which had previously been used mainly in capital markets for issuing and trading tokenized assets. The integration of a payments layer will allow settlements and asset transfers to be combined within a single infrastructure.
According to Rubail Birwadker, Global Head of Growth Products and Strategic Partnerships at Visa, integration with the Canton Network will allow financial institutions to use blockchain infrastructure without overhauling their operational processes. He also noted that the initiative complements Visa’s strategy in the digital assets segment.
Previously, Visa launched global programs Commercial Integrated Partners for seamless integration of payment functions, and Visa Intelligent Commerce for integrating AI agents into its payment network, as well as introduced the Visa CLI tool for enabling payments via AI agents. In addition, the company established Visa Consulting & Analytics (VCA) to advise banks, FinTech companies, and corporate clients on the use of stablecoins.
