Mastercard announced plans to expand its settlement capabilities, allowing issuers and acquirers to settle some card transactions using regulated stablecoins. The new options include intraday, weekend, and holiday settlement, supporting both fiat currencies and on-chain settlement through stablecoins. This move gives partners more flexibility in managing settlement liquidity and timing.
The expansion follows Mastercard securing a New York BitLicense in May, enabling its U.S. transaction services unit to conduct regulated digital asset business in the state.
The stablecoins supported include Circle's USDC, Paxos-issued PYUSD, Ripple's RLUSD, among others. They will be enabled across blockchains like Arbitrum, Ethereum, Polygon, and Solana.
ARQ, CBW Bank, Cross River, and other firms are expected to be among the first to support this optionality in the U.S. and Latin America.
Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot reached a $7 billion annualized run rate in April. MoneyGram launched MGUSD on Stellar. Western Union launched its USDPT stablecoin on Solana.
The stablecoin market is currently valued at about $320 billion.