Geoswift, SKUx Debut Programmable Stablecoin Network

Payments companies Geoswift and SKUx are teaming to launch a programmable stablecoin commerce network. The collaboration is designed to bridge digital assets, traditional finance, and real-world commerce at a global scale, the companies said in a news release Monday.

The network lets merchants and payment processors issue, manage, and settle programmable stablecoins in real time. Funds can carry embedded rules, such as expiry dates, spending limits or merchant category restrictions, that execute automatically on transfer without a separate smart contract layer or manual reconciliation.

For merchants, the pitch is faster settlement and lower cost than card networks. For stablecoin issuers, it opens a distribution channel into point-of-sale and e-commerce flows that have mostly stayed inside fiat rails.

The two firms bring different pieces. Geoswift holds a U.S. money transmitter license and operates cross-border payment infrastructure across Asia and North America. SKUx builds tokenized payment rails that let brands and retailers control how promotional funds are spent. Together, they target the gap between the stablecoin supply side, issuers like Circle and Paxos, and the merchant acceptance side, where most businesses still cannot accept USDC or USDT at checkout.

Programmable stablecoins are not new in theory. The Ethereum network has supported them for years. The practical bottleneck has been merchant integration. A retailer needs a payment processor able to convert stablecoin payments into fiat settlement and handle refunds, all while complying with anti-money laundering rules. Geoswift and SKUx are packaging that stack into a single API.

The announcement did not name launch partners or a go-live date. The companies said the network is in pilot with select merchants and payment processors.

The move tests whether programmable stablecoins can move beyond crypto-native use cases such as trading and remittances. Visa and Mastercard dominate the broader commerce flow, processing roughly $27 trillion in volume last year. Stablecoin settlement volume runs about $10 billion a day on-chain, mostly in trading and DeFi.

The gap is not just scale. It is infrastructure. Card networks offer chargeback rules and fraud scoring, plus settlement guarantees. A programmable stablecoin network would need to replicate those features, or convince merchants the trade-off is worth it.

Geoswift and SKUx are betting on speed and cost. Card settlement takes one to three days. Stablecoin settlement is near-instant. Interchange fees run 1.5% to 3.5% of transaction value. Stablecoin transfer costs, even on Ethereum, are a fraction of that. The pilot phase will show whether merchants find the trade-off acceptable.