Rain, which uses smart contracts to support lending and settlement of stablecoin-linked credit products, is one of three companies selected by Visa last month to participate in its Visa Intelligent Commerce initiative.

Smart contracts are digital programs stored on blockchains that automatically execute agreements when agreed upon terms are met. They eliminate the need for a third party, such as a bank or escrow service, to oversee or enforce the terms.

Rain has created smart contract infrastructure that enables a hold to be put on crypto assets, including stablecoins stored on a blockchain. It can execute that hold in 200 milliseconds, sufficient time for the process to be integrated into a payment card transaction initiated online or in-store. Transactions are authorized against the value of the stablecoin, not funds on deposit linked to a debit card or a line of credit tied to a credit card.

The company is a principal member of Visa and is a Visa preferred partner for stablecoin-linked card programs.

Rain has a card account processing partnership with Paymentology. Together, they support several dozen stablecoin-linked Visa card programs, including Nuvei, CompoSecure, Avalanche, Takenos and Karta.

Rain’s technology is modular, which enables the company to operate in most world regions.

Notably, Rain is the first card issuer in the Visa system to make settlement for its merchant obligations seven days a week using stablecoins. Because it doesn’t hold funds over a weekend, it can operate with less collateral reserves than other issuers.

Rain received $24.5 million in a Series A funding round in March 2025, led by Norwest Partners.

INTERVIEWED FOR THIS ARTICLE Farooq Malik is Chief Executive Officer at Rain in New York, farooq@rain.xyz, www.rain.xyz.