Visa extends its reach into the creator economy’s liquidity crunch

The payment terms only make it worse. Some payouts now stretch to 90 days, and in certain cases even 120, according to Revving, an ad tech finance startup. 

What’s emerged is a skewed marketplace shaped less by output than by the financial and bureaucratic plumbing that governs who gets paid when and on what terms. 

Visa is using creator financial platform Lumanu’s pre-funded wallet and agent-of-record system to move creator, freelance and production worker payments through Visa Direct, replacing week-long cross-border transfers with near instant payouts. Lumanu handles onboarding, compliance, invoicing and distribution across global markets, while Visa supplies the real-time rails. 

Together, they streamline how brands and agencies fund projects and pay talent, reduce hidden fees and open access for smaller creators who often struggle with slow settlement and rigid vendor-setup processes. 

“Through its partnerships and global payout infrastructure, Visa is able to gain important insight into how money moves through the creator economy,” said Mark Nelsen, global head of product, commercial and money movement solutions at Visa in an email. “This information helps identify pain points such as slow payouts and compliance challenges and informs new offerings like instant payouts, embedded financial tools, and more for creators.”

So far Lumanu has processed about $1.5 billion to date, and roughly 30 to 40% of that volume — the international portion — will now run through Visa Direct. Over time, they plan to migrate more of their domestic payments onto Visa’s rails as well. 

“Visa supports creators with the tools they need — the same way we support traditional small businesses around the world,” said Nelsen. “By supporting creators with the same tools and resources we offer SMBs — like simplified payment solutions, financial literacy or access to capital, we’re broadening the definition of what it means to be a modern small business.”

That broader mandate has been taking shape for several years. Visa’s push started in 2022 with a program aimed at helping creators incorporate non-fungible tokens into their business models. Since then, it has expanded into products, educational content and partnerships with fintech firms. The most recent example is a deal with Karat Financial, a startup offering credit cards and tailored banking for content creators.

Lumanu is a logical next step, giving Visa a deeper role in an industry moving real money at scale. U.S. creator ad spend alone is projected to hit $37 billion this year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Becoming one of the core arteries carrying that flow aligns with Visa’s long-running bet on the broadening landscape of entrepreneurial work. 

“Through recent research, Gen Z and young millennial small business owners have told us they need more from their financial institutions than just banking services and cards, which is why we’re here, to better serve these entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of all generations, everywhere,” said Nelsen.

That focus on liquidity is likely to become one of the defining subplots of the creator economy in the years ahead. Ad tech firms, agencies and fintech companies are all trying to close that gap, whether by stripping out layers of intermediaries between advertisers and creators or by rolling out their own escrow-like services to accelerate payments. 

But those fixes have limits. They only work when the money actually moves, and much of it is still stuck in the bureaucratic gears that delay the liquidity event in the first place. 

“Most delayed payments are because of disorganized process on the brand or the agency side,” said Tim Mitchell, co-founder of influencer marketing platform CreatorOS. “The people on that side are drowning in admin.”

That won’t be permanent. The volume of ad dollars flowing into this part of the market now demands operational rigor — the kind that eventually grinds down the bureaucracy slowing things down. Even so, it’s clear this transition is only beginning.