04.16.2026

How PSPs Can Enable Stablecoin Payments for Merchants

Stablecoin transaction volume surpassed $46+ trillion in 2025, officially outpacing Visa's annual payments volume for the first time. For payment service providers, that number is no longer a research footnote. It is a product decision.

Merchants are beginning to ask for stablecoin acceptance. Not because they want crypto exposure, but because dollar-pegged tokens like USDC and USDT settle in seconds, cross borders without correspondent banking friction, and are already being used for payments. The proof of concept is no longer theoretical. In January 2026, Ingenico — the global leader in payment acceptance with tens of millions of terminals deployed across 120 countries — announced a full integration with WalletConnect Pay, enabling native stablecoin payments at physical checkouts without new hardware or changes to existing merchant workflows. As Ingenico CEO Floris de Kort put it: "No extra hardware, no need to hold balances in digital currencies, and most importantly, no friction."

For PSPs watching from the sidelines, the message from the Ingenico announcement is clear: the infrastructure is production-ready, and the window to build a differentiated stablecoin product is open now.

This guide covers exactly how to do it.

Why Stablecoin Payments Are a PSP Opportunity, Not Just a Merchant One

Before building a product, it helps to understand what merchants are actually asking for. In most cases, the request is not "accept Bitcoin." It is something more specific:

• Settlement in a dollar-pegged asset without FX risk
• Faster cross-border payment finality than SWIFT or card networks
• Lower transaction fees on high-value B2B payments
• An option for international buyers who prefer onchain payments

The merchant's priority is the outcome, not the technology. But the PSP opportunity goes further than just enabling a new payment method.

WalletConnect Pay is the infrastructure layer that makes this commercially viable for PSPs. Built on the WalletConnect Network, which facilitated over $400 billion in volume in 2025, WalletConnect Pay provides a single APM-style integration that connects PSPs to 500 million users across 700+ wallets on all major blockchains. PSPs do not build the rails. They plug into them.

The Four Components of a PSP Stablecoin Product

1. A Stablecoin Acceptance Layer

The first requirement is a mechanism for merchants to receive stablecoin payments at checkout. This can be a hosted payment page that generates a wallet address per transaction, or a direct API integration into the merchant's existing checkout flow.

WalletConnect Pay provides PSPs with a non-custodial acceptance layer that supports USDC, USDT, EURC, and other major stablecoins across Ethereum mainnet, Base, Polygon, Arbitrum, and additional EVM-compatible chains. Merchants do not need to hold or manage wallets themselves. Customers pay directly from any WalletConnect-compatible wallet, including MetaMask, Trust Wallet, and Binance Wallet, by scanning a QR code or connecting in-browser. The PSP handles the infrastructure; the merchant sees a familiar settlement flow.

This is the same flow Ingenico deployed at physical POS terminals in January 2026. As covered by PYMNTS and FinTech Magazine, the integration required no hardware changes from Ingenico, just a software deployment to its Android payment terminals.

2. Settlement and Off-Ramp Options

Most merchants want stablecoin settlement converted to fiat before it hits their bank account. PSPs therefore need an off-ramp arrangement: a conversion path from USDC or USDT to USD, EUR, or GBP that executes automatically post-transaction.

WalletConnect Pay supports both settlement paths: merchants can choose to receive stablecoin or convert to fiat, based on their business requirements. This optionality matters. PSPs that can offer treasury flexibility, settle to fiat or hold onchain, differentiate on a point that is increasingly important to larger merchants with cross-border payables.

3. Compliance Infrastructure: The Part Most PSPs Get Wrong

Compliance is where most PSP stablecoin projects stall. It does not need to be the obstacle it appears to be, but it does require deliberate planning.

Stablecoin payments are subject to the same AML and KYC obligations as any other payment product. PSPs operating under MiCA in the EU, or serving merchants in FATF member jurisdictions, need the following in place before going live:

Transaction monitoring. Onchain transactions must be screened for OFAC sanctions exposure and wallet risk. This includes assessing the counterparty wallet's transaction history, not just the immediate sender. WalletConnect Pay handles this at the infrastructure layer: sanctions screening and compliance checks are built into the payment flow, so PSPs do not need to build new tooling or change existing workflows. As WalletConnect Pay CEO Jess Houlgrave told PYMNTS: "The payments company and the merchant shouldn't even need to know about any of this stuff. They should just be able to serve this as an offering."

Travel Rule compliance. Under MiCA, transfers above EUR 1,000 require the originator and beneficiary information to travel with the transaction, the same principle as FATF Recommendation 16 for wire transfers. WalletConnect Pay is built to capture and transmit this information as part of the standard payment flow, aligning with requirements that PSPs already manage for card and bank transfer products.

KYC on merchant entities. PSPs are required to conduct due diligence on merchants accepting stablecoin payments in the same way they do for card acquiring. The addition of stablecoin acceptance does not require a separate KYC programme; it extends the existing one to cover onchain settlement.

Licensing position. In the EU, MiCA creates a specific category for e-money tokens covering stablecoins like USDC. PSPs operating as licensed EMIs may be able to extend their existing licence. In the US, state-by-state money transmission licensing may apply depending on fund flows. Legal review is required before going live in any jurisdiction, but PSPs with existing payment institution licences have the foundation in place.

The key insight from the Ingenico deployment is that compliance does not have to be built from scratch. WalletConnect Pay's compliance architecture is designed to slot into existing PSP operational frameworks, the same KYC, AML, and reporting workflows PSPs already run, without requiring new compliance infrastructure. The full technical overview is in the WalletConnect Pay documentation.

4. Merchant Onboarding and Support

The final component is consistently underestimated. Merchant onboarding for stablecoin payments requires clear documentation, a defined flow for handling failed or underpaid transactions, and support staff who can answer basic questions about settlement timing.

One of the most common merchant concerns, refunds, has a clean answer in WalletConnect Pay. Refunds are handled through standard merchant dashboard workflows, with a single button triggering the reversal process. WalletConnect Pay is designed so that users always pay to the correct network, eliminating the "wrong chain" errors that have historically made crypto refund handling complicated.

PSPs that build a dedicated merchant guide, a sandbox environment, and a clear escalation path see meaningfully higher activation rates after sign-up. WalletConnect has these already in place, and a PSP wants to use them for their merchants.

Which Stablecoins to Support First

Not all stablecoins carry the same weight from a PSP perspective. The selection criteria come down to liquidity, regulatory status, and merchant demand.

USDC is the most practical starting point for PSPs in regulated markets. Circle is a licensed money transmitter in the US, is pursuing an EMI licence in Europe, and USDC has deep liquidity across Ethereum, Base, Solana, and Polygon. WalletConnect Pay supports USDC across all major chains at launch.

USDT (Tether) has higher global transaction volume and remains dominant in emerging markets and in cross-border B2B flows, particularly across Asia and Latin America. It is included in WalletConnect Pay's supported assets.

EURC, Circle's euro-denominated stablecoin, is worth prioritising for PSPs with a European merchant base who want to eliminate FX conversion entirely on EUR-denominated transactions, which again WalletConnect Pay supports.

The Ingenico integration launched with USDC, EURC, and USDT across the Ethereum mainnet, Base, Arbitrum, and Polygon, a blueprint that PSPs can replicate directly through WalletConnect Pay with a single integration.

Why WalletConnect Pay Is the Right Infrastructure Partner

PSPs evaluating whether to build stablecoin acceptance in-house or use a third-party infrastructure provider should weigh one core tradeoff: time to market versus control.

Building in-house gives maximum control but requires blockchain engineering capability across multiple chains, ongoing maintenance as networks upgrade, and a compliance layer built from scratch. For most PSPs, that is a 12-to-18 month build.

WalletConnect Pay compresses that timeline to weeks. The integration is APM-style, familiar to any PSP that has added Apple Pay or a regional wallet to their checkout stack. The compliance architecture is pre-built and pre-tested. The network already connects 500 million users across 700+ wallets. And as the Ingenico partnership press release confirms, WalletConnect Pay is production-ready at global scale, in-store, online, and across every major stablecoin.

For PSPs that want to understand the full product vision, the WalletConnect blog post on how WalletConnect Pay will become the standard for onchain payments sets out the roadmap: from single-integration stablecoin acceptance today, to agent-driven, token-abstracted, fraud-protected transactions at every checkout in the future.