Western Union Unveils Plans for USDPT Stablecoin on Solana

Western Union announced the creation of its stablecoin USDPT in October 2025, and now the company’s CEO, Devin McGranahan, has confirmed that it will launch in May.

Summary

USDPT launches in May 2026 on Solana.
Initially: agent-to-agent settlements, replacing SWIFT.
USD Stable Card is coming later in 2026.
First markets: Argentina, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Turkey, Venezuela, Mexico.
Main competitor: PYUSD by PayPal.

Three phases

According to Yahoo Finance, USDPT will not begin as a consumer product. It will be issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, while Solana will serve as the settlement layer.

The first phase will be agent-to-agent settlements: the internal system through which Western Union moves funds between more than 500,000 partners worldwide.

Here, the stablecoin will replace SWIFT, a system that is slow, expensive, and limited by banking hours.

This is the most important step. If it works at this scale, it proves that the model is viable.

It is important to note that this initiative is the first real test of whether blockchain infrastructure can replace traditional systems like SWIFT at such scale.

The second phase is the Digital Asset Network (DAN), which is already starting with its first partner. The network will connect crypto wallets with over 360,000 physical Western Union locations.

The model is simple: a user with a crypto wallet sends USDPT, and the recipient in Africa – without a wallet and without a bank account – withdraws the money in cash from the nearest Western Union location.

⚡️NEW: WESTERN UNION TO LAUNCH USDPT STABLECOIN ON SOLANA

Global payments giant Western Union is rolling out USDPT on Solana, powered by Crossmint’s wallet and payment APIs, with redemption available at 360,000 cash locations across 200+ countries. pic.twitter.com/FPfxhf832q

— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) March 5, 2026

This solves a key problem: converting crypto into cash. For example, a person in Africa will be able to exchange USDPT at one of the locations without needing a bank account.

The third phase is the USD Stable Card, a card that will launch later in 2026. It will operate through the network of Visa and will allow payments in local currency while the balance remains in USDPT, again without requiring users to have a bank account.

Which markets the products target

The integration of the products follows a market-specific logic. Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa are identified as initial targets for the rollout of USDPT’s agent-based settlement system in May – regions where Western Union already has a well-developed agent network and where dollar-based settlements reduce friction for both senders and recipients.

The USD Stable Card, which will appear later in 2026, is aimed at countries with extreme inflation: Argentina, Turkey, and Venezuela. In these markets, value denominated in dollars has immediate practical benefits for the population.

Mexico appears in more than one phase for a specific reason. After acquiring the digital wallet Lana in March 2026, Western Union secured direct access to users and local infrastructure.

This makes the country a perfect choice for integrating both USDPT and the future Stable Card.

The selected markets are not random.

Argentina is a key example: inflation above 200% means that the local currency loses value rapidly. If a person holds $500 in USDPT, it retains its value. If they hold it in pesos, the real value may decrease significantly over a short period of time.

The same logic applies to Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Turkey, and Venezuela – markets with high inflation and limited access to dollars.

What the competition looks like

After launch, the most direct competitor to USDPT will be PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD, because, like Western Union, the company is built as a network for international money transfers.

At the time of writing, PYUSD has a market capitalization of $3.44 billion but has declined by 18% over the past few months.

Although both platforms are designed for international money transfers, PYUSD targets users who already have access to dollars, a smartphone, and digital financial services.

The real bet here is not whether USDPT will take market share from PYUSD or Tether.

The 18% decline in PYUSD is not a technical issue; it reflects a fundamental limitation of the product. People do not change their financial habits because of technology. They change them out of necessity.

PYUSD offers convenience to users who already have dollars, a bank account, and digital services, but it operates in an environment dominated by older and larger players – people who do not need a new way to store value because the old one works well enough.

USDPT starts from a different position: it offers stability to people who have no choice, whose currency is depreciating, who have no access to a bank, and whose only access to dollars comes through a Western Union agent on the corner. This is a fundamentally different motivation – and historically a much stronger driver of mass adoption than any technological convenience.

The information presented in this article is intended for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as financial, investment, or trading advice. Coinspress.com does not promote or advocate for any particular investment strategy, asset, or cryptocurrency project. Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile and unpredictable – always perform your own research and seek guidance from a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions.

Author

Alexander Stefanov

Reporter at CoinsPress

Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.