Visa is partnering with WeFi — a blockchain payments and stablecoin infrastructure startup co‑founded by Reeve Collins, an early Tether figure — to build the “last half mile” of on‑chain banking, the companies announced Tuesday. WeFi positions itself as an “orchestration layer between decentralized finance (DeFi) and regulated payment infrastructure,” designed to enable real‑world use cases such as cross‑border spending and on‑chain value storage. In practice, that means connecting on‑chain assets and stablecoins to bank‑grade rails so consumers and merchants can use crypto with the same reliability and regulatory guardrails as traditional payments. “We're upgrading the plumbing and offering essentially people bank accounts, because they'll soon have their IBAN numbers, and we're getting the various licenses around the world to operate appropriately,” Collins said in an interview. WeFi plans to obtain licenses and issue banking partnerships in multiple jurisdictions as it scales, targeting the underbanked and remittance flows that could benefit most from cheaper, faster cross‑border settlements. The initial rollout will be phased region by region, beginning with selected markets across Europe, Asia and Latin America. Further expansion will depend on local regulatory approvals and issuing partnerships, the companies cautioned. “Partnership with Visa really closes that last half mile of onchain banking infrastructure,” Collins added. Visa’s Europe head of Product & Solutions, Mathieu Altwegg, framed the deal as a blueprint for how the card network’s global payments backbone can interact with on‑chain models while operating inside established regulatory frameworks. “This collaboration demonstrates how Visa’s global network interacts with onchain models, while operating within established regulatory frameworks and the reliability consumers and merchants expect,” Altwegg said. For crypto observers, the tie‑up highlights an acceleration in efforts to bridge DeFi liquidity and tokenized value with fiat rails and regulated bank accounts. If executed at scale, the integration could lower friction for everyday crypto payments and remittances — while keeping transactions compliant with traditional financial controls. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news