Visa Unveils AI, Stablecoin and Tokenisation Innovations for Digital Commerce in CEMEA

Visa  has announced a suite of new artificial intelligence (AI), stablecoin and tokenisation capabilities designed to help clients across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) participate in the next generation of digital commerce.

Ahead of the Visa Payments Forum in Paris on 1 July, the global payments company outlined how AI and stablecoins are reshaping both the customer-facing and back-end aspects of commerce, while introducing new technologies aimed at enabling secure, intelligent and programmable payment experiences.

“Commerce is entering a new phase that is increasingly intelligent, programmable, and embedded into everyday experiences. For companies serving the digital economy the opportunity is significant, but so is the need for trust and interoperability. Visa is focused on providing the infrastructure and intelligence to innovate confidently across the front- and back-end of payments and deliver better experiences for the consumers and businesses they serve.”

– Tareq Muhmood, Regional President, CEMEA, Visa

AI reshaping digital commerce

Visa said AI is fundamentally changing how transactions are initiated, authorised and secured, while also accelerating the development of new commerce experiences.

The company highlighted Visa Intelligent Commerce, its platform for agentic commerce, which enables AI agents to securely discover, initiate and complete transactions on behalf of consumers and businesses while providing the controls and trust required for autonomous transactions.

To support this emerging ecosystem, Visa introduced two new capabilities.

The first is Agent Score, developed with New Generation, which allows merchants to assess whether their websites are ready for agentic commerce by evaluating whether AI agents can successfully navigate, understand and complete tasks on their platforms.

The second is Agentic Directory, a verification service designed to help merchants identify trusted AI agents while enabling AI agents to verify legitimate merchants before completing transactions.

Tokenisation adoption accelerates

Visa also highlighted rapid growth in payment tokenisation across the CEMEA region, noting that tokenised transactions have increased from 26% in 2023 to 70% in 2026.

The company is enhancing payment tokens with richer transaction data, including additional information about transaction types, token usage and payment origin. Visa is also introducing a new token assurance signal that evaluates a token throughout its lifecycle based on provisioning and behavioural history to generate an additional layer of trust.

According to Visa, these enhancements strengthen the role of tokens as the foundation for secure AI-driven and digital commerce.

Stablecoins modernising settlement

On the back end of payments, Visa outlined continued progress in expanding stablecoin settlement and blockchain-enabled money movement.

The company said its Tokenized Deposits technology will enable banks to convert traditional deposits into programmable digital money, allowing financial institutions to benefit from the speed and flexibility of stablecoins while keeping customer funds on their balance sheets.

Visa also revealed that it has expanded stablecoin settlement pilots across multiple regions, currencies and blockchain networks.

Building on initial pilots launched in early 2025, the company said it has now processed billions of dollars in stablecoins across VisaNet, reaching an annualised run rate of approximately $7 billion as of March 2026.

Visa added that issuing banks are already settling transactions on-chain seven days a week and that it is working to extend seven-day settlement to acquiring banks, increasing flexibility across the payments ecosystem.

In the CEMEA region, stablecoin settlement volumes have grown nearly 60-fold since the capability was introduced a year ago.

Meanwhile, Visa continues expanding its stablecoin-linked card programmes, with more than 160 programmes either live or in development globally, enabling consumers and businesses to spend stablecoin balances wherever Visa is accepted.

AI-powered travel intelligence

Visa also introduced Visa Trip Intelligence, a new AI-powered capability launching in CEMEA that combines VisaNet intelligence with third-party data to help banks anticipate customers’ travel needs before a transaction occurs.

The solution can infer travel intent, generate personalised itineraries and provide activation-ready insights, allowing banks to offer timely travel support, reduce payment friction and deliver more relevant services and benefits to customers while travelling.

The latest announcements reinforce Visa’s broader strategy of combining AI, tokenisation and blockchain infrastructure to create secure, intelligent and increasingly automated payment experiences for consumers, merchants and financial institutions across the CEMEA region.