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1. What fee will the OUSD stablecoin carry?
Open Standard, the governance group behind the OUSD stablecoin, will charge a management fee of 0.1 basis point on payment volume, capped at $0.01 per payment, according to documents describing the arrangement. OUSD, short for OpenUSD, was introduced earlier in 2026 by Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase and Shopify. The group is also offering partners a way to earn equity based on their holdings and flows of the token.
The numbers are tiny by design. A basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point, so 0.1 basis point equals 0.001%. The fee schedule is meant to show that a stablecoin run by payment companies can price its governance at a fraction of what card networks and processors typically charge for moving money.
2. How does the one-cent cap work?
Payments of $1,000 or more hit the $0.01 ceiling, while smaller payments are charged 0.1 basis point of their amount. The documentation gives an example that makes the point plainly: on a $1 million transfer, 0.1 basis point would come to $10, but the cap holds the fee at one cent.
The arithmetic checks out. At 0.001%, a $1,000 payment generates exactly $0.01, which is why the cap begins to bite at that size. Every payment above $1,000 costs the same one cent, no matter whether it is $5,000 or $5 million. For large corporate flows, the effective rate therefore falls toward zero as the amount rises.
3. Who is behind Open Standard?
Fees flow to Open Standard, the company that stands behind the stablecoin. Its initial founding partners are the five firms that launched OUSD: Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase and Shopify. Each has committed more than $1 billion in near-term launch liquidity, meaning the amount of the token they intend to make available so that it can be used from the start.
The line-up combines card networks, a payments processor, a crypto exchange and an e-commerce platform. That mix covers both sides of a typical transaction, from the merchant that sells goods to the networks and processors that route the payment. Open Standard describes the goal of OUSD as making cross-border settlement painless and cutting fiat currency conversions to near zero.
4. How OUSD handles reserve interest
One feature separates OUSD from the largest stablecoins. With Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC, the issuer keeps the interest earned on the reserves that back the token. Under the OUSD design, that reserve interest is passed on to the partners, less the management fee.
The difference matters because reserve income is the main revenue source for stablecoin issuers. Reserves, typically held in short-term government securities and cash, produce interest even though token holders are not paid it. Redirecting that income to a partner group turns the stablecoin from a profit center for a single issuer into shared infrastructure whose economics are distributed among the firms that use it.
It also explains why the management fee can be so small. If Open Standard's purpose is to cover the cost of governance rather than to maximize income from the token itself, a charge of a hundredth of a cent on a large payment may be sufficient for that purpose.
5. Why a consortium model differs from a single issuer
Most large stablecoins are run by one company that issues the token, holds the reserves and sets the rules. That arrangement is simple, but it concentrates control and income in a single firm. OUSD takes a different route, with a governance group owned and directed by several companies, each of which has a stake in how the token is run.
Shared governance can reassure businesses that would be reluctant to depend on a rival's product. A card network or an e-commerce platform may hesitate to build core payment flows on a token controlled by a competitor, whereas a neutral body with several founders may be easier to accept. The 5% ownership cap, counting all warrants earned, reinforces that neutrality by limiting how much influence any one partner can accumulate.
The consortium approach brings its own challenges. Decisions have to be made among partners whose commercial interests do not always align, and the governance rules will be tested when questions arise about fees, reserve management or admission of new participants. The monthly measurement of holdings and flows, which feeds the equity pool, will also need to be transparent enough for partners to trust the result.
For now, the launch liquidity commitments are the clearest sign of intent. More than $1 billion from each of five founding partners gives the token depth from the outset, which is important for a settlement asset: a payment token is only useful if there is enough of it available to move large amounts without friction.
6. How the equity earn-in pool works
Separately, Open Standard is offering partners a chance to earn equity in the project. Each month, the platform measures how much of the stablecoin a partner holds and moves. Those measurements determine the partner's share of an annual equity earn-in pool.
There are limits. A partner needs at least $50 million to qualify, and no single partner can exceed 5% ownership once all warrants earned are counted. A warrant is a right to buy equity at a set price, so the cap is applied to what a firm could end up owning and not only what it holds today.
The structure rewards activity as well as balances. A partner that keeps large sums in OUSD and also uses it to settle payments builds a bigger claim than one that merely holds it. At the same time, the 5% ceiling prevents any one company from taking control of the governance group through sheer volume, which is a notable safeguard in a consortium that includes some of the largest firms in payments.
7. Reading the fee in context
Fees in payments are usually expressed as a percentage of the amount moved, plus in some cases a fixed charge per transaction. Open Standard's formula blends the two ideas in an unusual way: a tiny percentage that is itself limited by a fixed ceiling. The effect is that the cost is almost invisible for small purchases and never grows beyond one cent for large ones.
That design makes the cost predictable, which is attractive to finance teams that need to forecast what settlement will cost. A business moving large sums between countries can know in advance that each payment will carry a charge of no more than a cent, and does not have to model changes in an amount-based fee.
It also shows what the fee is not. A management fee of this size is unlikely to be a major revenue line on its own. Its role looks closer to cost recovery for the governance group, while the larger economic questions, such as who benefits from reserve interest and who earns equity, are handled through the other mechanisms described in the documents.
The structure also leaves open the question of what users outside the partner group will pay. The documents described so far set out the management fee and the earning pool for partners, and they do not address every cost a business might face, such as network charges for moving tokens or the price of converting into local currency at either end of a payment.
8. What Visa has published for partners
Alongside the fee and earning-pool material, Visa released more than 100 pages of technical implementation and user guidance for partner firms. The documents are aimed at companies that plan to integrate OUSD through the Visa Stablecoin Platform.
Detailed integration guides signal that the project is moving from announcement to practical build-out. Payment companies need clear specifications for how a new settlement asset connects to existing systems, how balances are reconciled and how end users interact with it, and those details tend to determine how quickly partners can go live.
9. Why does stablecoin economics matter for payments?
Stablecoins are tokens designed to hold a steady value, typically one US dollar, and they have become a common way to move money across borders because they settle around the clock and do not depend on banking hours. For payment companies, the question is who captures the economics of that movement: the issuer, the networks, the processors or the users.
The OUSD fee structure offers one answer. By capping fees at a cent and sending reserve interest to partners, it positions the token as low-cost plumbing for companies that already process large volumes of payments. Whether that appeals to firms outside the founding group will depend on how the equity pool and the governance rules work in practice.
10. What to watch next
The details published so far come from documents describing the arrangement and not from a formal public rulebook, so the final terms may be refined. Observers will look for confirmation of the fee schedule, the first partners to qualify for the earn-in pool and the pace at which integrations through the Visa Stablecoin Platform go live. Reaction from regulators and from the issuers of competing dollar tokens, whose model depends on keeping reserve income, will also help show how the consortium approach fares.
The ultimate test will be adoption beyond the founding group. A fee of at most one cent and a share of reserve income are attractive terms on paper, but payment firms will want evidence that the token can be used smoothly in real transactions, that liquidity holds up under heavy use and that the governance group treats partners consistently. Those answers will come only as integrations go live and volumes build.