Key Takeaways
- Walmart, Amazon, and Expedia are exploring stablecoins to reduce transaction fees for card payments.
- The adoption of stablecoins by retailers depends on the Genius Act, which would regulate their use.
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Top American retailers and travel companies, including Amazon, Walmart, and Expedia, are weighing the launch of their own stablecoins to reduce payment processing costs, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing people with knowledge of the effort.
The potential shift could help merchants save billions of dollars in fees tied to card payments, including interchange fees.
Merchants typically pay 1–3% for each credit card transaction to networks like Visa and Mastercard. For large retailers processing billions of transactions, these fees add up to huge annual costs.
Another key advantage is that stablecoin transactions can settle nearly instantly, compared to the 1 to 3 business days typical for traditional card payments. This enables merchants to access funds faster, improve cash flow, and more effectively manage global supply chains, especially when making payments to international suppliers.
Amazon’s exploration is in its early stages, with discussions focusing on developing a coin for online purchases, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Companies are also considering using external stablecoins, possibly through a merchant consortium led by a single stablecoin issuer.
Major US banks, such as JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo, are considering a joint stablecoin initiative to compete with digital asset platforms that are gaining market share rapidly, according to a May report from The Journal.
As with the banks’ efforts, the future of the retailers’ stablecoin plans depends on the passage of the Genius Act, which would create a regulatory framework for stablecoins.
The proposed legislation has cleared a key procedural hurdle but still requires approval from both the Senate and the House. The US Senate will hold a final vote on the GENIUS Act on June 17 to define a regulatory framework for stablecoins.
Merchant trade groups, led by the Merchants Payments Coalition, have been advocating for the Genius Act’s passage, arguing that a stablecoin regulatory framework would create competition against Visa and Mastercard while lowering expenses.
Walmart has separately lobbied for an amendment to the GENIUS Act that would introduce more competition in the credit-card sector.
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