WalletConnect Pay has announced a partnership with Ingenico to enable stablecoin payments at physical checkouts, shielding merchants from blockchain complexities. CEO Jess Houlgrave emphasized that this integration allows crypto users to pay with trusted assets without merchants holding digital currencies. The move builds on growing stablecoin volumes and aims to integrate crypto into everyday retail.
Cryptocurrency payments have long struggled to enter mainstream commerce due to the intricacies of blockchain technology. WalletConnect Pay, a financial connectivity layer, is addressing this by focusing on usability rather than the underlying blockchains. In a recent interview, CEO Jess Houlgrave explained the distinction between settlement and full payment processes. "People conflate what settlement is and what a payment is," she said. "Blockchains are really great for settling value and for moving value, but all of the other pieces of a payment—all of the messaging and the complicated bits—are not really designed for a blockchain ecosystem."
Houlgrave highlighted the "messy middle" of payments, which includes authorization, capture, refunds, and disputes—elements that have hindered crypto adoption. Stablecoins are proving key to bridging this gap, especially as wallets connect to traditional card networks like Visa and Mastercard. She noted that card-based stablecoin transaction volumes reached about $500 million in December 2025, with rapid monthly growth, though still modest globally.
The new partnership with Ingenico integrates stablecoin payments into physical retail via the company's Android payment terminals. Merchants can accept these payments without additional hardware or managing digital assets on their balance sheets. WalletConnect acts as an orchestration layer, handling compliance, sanctions screening, and fiat conversions. "The payments company and the merchant shouldn’t even need to know about any of this stuff," Houlgrave stated. "Our job is to remove the complexity."
This builds on WalletConnect's network, which links over 700 wallets serving more than 500 million users and processed over $400 billion in volume in 2025, including substantial stablecoin activity. The collaboration extends access to millions of Ingenico terminals in retail, hospitality, transportation, and self-service sectors.
Looking ahead, WalletConnect's roadmap includes managing crypto-to-fiat exchanges for refunds timed similarly to card transactions, with near-instant options planned. Houlgrave anticipates faster adoption as banks and neobanks allow stablecoin holdings. "If people are able to hold stablecoins, we need to give them ways of using that in-store as well as online," she said. Crypto's fragmentation—spanning blockchains, wallets, and hundreds of stablecoins—remains a challenge, but standardization in areas like privacy and information sharing will help, according to the CEO.