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- Western Union says its Solana-based stablecoin USDPT is expected to launch next month, initially for settlement with agent partners.
- The company also plans a consumer-facing “Stable Card,” signaling a broader push into stablecoin-based payments beyond back-end infrastructure.
Western Union is preparing to enter the stablecoin market directly, and it is doing so with a two-step strategy that starts in the back office before moving to consumers.
During its first-quarter earnings call on April 24, chief executive Devin McGranahan said the company’s Solana-based stablecoin, USDPT, is in the final stage of preparation and is expected to launch next month. His framing was fairly direct. It is no longer a question of whether Western Union will participate in digital assets, he said, but how quickly it can scale.
USDPT starts as settlement infrastructure, not a retail token
The initial use case is narrower than the headline might suggest. McGranahan said USDPT will not debut as a consumer-facing stablecoin. Instead, Western Union plans to use it first as an alternative to the SWIFT rails it currently relies on to settle with agent partners.
That matters because the company is not treating stablecoins as a marketing add-on or speculative product. It is treating them as payments infrastructure.
According to management, the first rollout will take place in select countries with key agent partners, where USDPT will be used for onchain settlement. The practical appeal is obvious enough. Settlement can continue through weekends and banking holidays, which is exactly where traditional cross-border systems tend to slow down or stop.
For a remittance company, that is not a minor efficiency gain. It goes to the center of how quickly money can move through the network.
The bigger ambition is global consumer use
Western Union’s plans do not stop at institutional settlement. The company also outlined a broader consumer roadmap, including a Stable Card designed for global users.
That suggests the firm wants to build outward from the infrastructure layer into everyday payment products once the reserve, settlement and compliance mechanics are in place. In other words, USDPT may begin as internal financial plumbing, but the commercial ambition is wider.
The significance of that is hard to miss. Western Union has spent decades operating one of the world’s best-known money-transfer networks.
If it now starts replacing parts of its own settlement stack with stablecoins, and then builds consumer tools on top of that, the move would represent something larger than another stablecoin launch.
It would signal that one of traditional finance’s oldest cross-border payment brands believes tokenized dollars are ready to move from the edge of the system toward the center.
