Canza Finance Launches Visa Card for USDT0 Payments via Visa Network

What to Know

• Canza Finance, Arbitrum, and Tevau have launched infrastructure that lets users load USDT0 stablecoins onto a Visa card and spend it anywhere Visa is accepted.
• Canza routes stablecoin liquidity across African corridors (Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana) via its Autonomous Payment Protocol.
• Arbitrum provides the network rails, and Tevau issues the card and handles real-time conversion to local fiat at checkout.
• USDT0 is a cross-chain version of Tether’s dollar, backed 1:1 by Ethereum-based USDT reserves and built on LayerZero’s OFT standard.

A trader moving goods between Lagos and Nairobi has long faced the same tax on every transaction. Routing the money through correspondent banks, paying 3% to 8% in fees. Waiting days for confirmation, and losing a little more on the exchange rate at each step. 

For a trader in those cities, that cost can amount to the equivalent of a day’s wages lost to middlemen. A new partnership is trying to remove that friction by allowing people to spend stablecoins directly at checkout.

Canza Finance, in partnership with Arbitrum and Tevau, has launched infrastructure that lets users load USDT0 onto a Visa card and spend it anywhere Visa is accepted. 

What Canza Finance with Arbitrum and Tevau, Actually Launched

Canza Finance is partnering with Arbitrum and Tevau to build end-to-end USDT0 deposit and Visa card-spend infrastructure for cross-border commerce in emerging markets. 

The roles are split across the three companies: Canza drives the volume, Arbitrum provides the rails, and Tevau issues the card.

In practice, Canza’s Autonomous Payment Protocol routes stablecoin liquidity across African payment corridors in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and beyond. Then, the settled liquidity loads directly onto Tevau-powered Visa cards via Arbitrum. The flow for a small trader is straightforward: settle in USDT0, load the card, and spend it at any Visa merchant, with no conversion loss to a local bank and no multi-day wire wait.

What USDT0 Is vs Regular USDT

It’s worth being precise here, because USDT0 is not the same as regular USDT. 

USDT0 is a cross-chain version of Tether’s dollar, backed 1:1 by Ethereum-based USDT reserves and designed to move across multiple blockchains without fragmenting liquidity. It launched on Arbitrum in early 2025, with Arbitrum serving as the hub linking USDT across networks like Ethereum, Tron, and TON.

The system relies on LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard, which the companies say provides a secure bridge for moving funds between USDT and USDT0 while keeping liquidity unified across supported chains. In short, it’s the same digital dollar, engineered to travel more freely between networks.

How the Card Works For Users

You hold USDT0, settled through Canza’s protocol, and Tevau’s card infrastructure handles the conversion to local fiat at the point of sale. 

Tevau issues blockchain-powered cards that convert digital assets to fiat in real time during a transaction. Hence, allowing users to spend at any Visa merchant without the merchant needing to use any blockchain tooling.

The merchant receives local currency as normal. The customer spends what is effectively a digital dollar. Neither side has to think about the chain doing the settlement in the background. 

Why This Is More Than Another Crypto Card

Crypto-linked Visa and Mastercard products aren’t new, so it would be easy to file this under “another crypto card launch.” This is different because stablecoins are increasingly becoming the backend settlement layer for traditional card networks, not just assets for trading.

As USDT0’s co-founder framed it, speed between chains means little if you cannot spend the balance in the real world. Extending USDT0 to the point of sale is what turns interoperability into everyday utility. For years, stablecoins have mostly served the purposes of trading, savings, and remittances. Pushing them into routine consumer spending is a meaningful shift in what they’re actually used for.

There’s a useful parallel in mobile money. When systems like M-Pesa took off across Africa, users didn’t think about the telecom infrastructure beneath the surface; they simply “sent money.” Stablecoin Visa cards could follow the same arc, where people spend digital dollars without ever interacting with crypto directly. While on its end, the blockchain operates entirely in the background as plumbing.

Canza’s Broader Strategy and Settlement Layer Positioning

Canza positions itself as a settlement layer for stablecoin liquidity and real-world assets in emerging markets. Its multi-agent payment protocol (CAPP) is designed to enable sub-60-second cross-border settlement across African corridors.

This is Phase 1, focused on USDT0 deposits into Tevau cards via Arbitrum, with Canza’s settlement layer handling cross-border routing and FX optimisation upstream. The longer-term design treats this as a full spend rail for CAPP-settled funds. Every cross-border payment routed through the protocol becomes a potential card-load event. More corridors, more volume, more card activity, more USDT0 velocity on Arbitrum.

Each partner gets something distinct. Arbitrum captures transaction volume tied to real trade. USDT0 gains a demand-side use case that extends Tether’s dollar reach. Tevau gains distribution into a fast-growing payments market through Canza’s existing corridors.

The Card Caveats

Africa’s digital payments are projected to reach roughly $1.5 trillion by 2030. Much of the volume is driven by informal traders and SMEs, who currently absorb the heaviest fees for the least efficient services.

A few caveats are worth stating plainly. This is an early-stage Phase 1 rollout, so the supported regions, merchants, and settlement timelines will determine how useful it is in practice. Stablecoins are not risk-free money. They carry issuer, regulatory, and de-pegging risks that a smooth checkout experience can mask. And none of this replaces Visa or banks; it rides on Visa’s existing network rather than competing with it.

What the launch does signal is a direction of travel. If stablecoins can sit behind a familiar card and let a trader settle and spend the same day, they start to feel less like crypto assets and more like invisible digital dollars. 

For markets that have historically paid the most to move money, that’s the part worth watching.