Mastercard is expanding its stablecoin settlement capabilities by incorporating more regulated USD stablecoins into the credit card transaction clearing process. This move will provide issuers and acquirers with additional intraday, weekend, and holiday settlement options, advancing the payment network toward 24/7 operations.
Include more stablecoins
This expansion covers Circle’s USDC, Ripple’s RLUSD, and SoFi’s newly launched SoFiUSD. Mastercard will also support multiple stablecoins issued by Paxos, including PYUSD, USDG, and USDP.
The company stated that as the demand for speed and liquidity in fund transfers increases, stablecoins are being used more frequently in settlement processes. The new arrangement focuses on enabling partner institutions to complete more fund settlements outside traditional banking hours.
Existing partnerships continue to advance
Mastercard’s collaboration with Circle is not the first of its kind. USDC has previously been used for settlement in certain markets. Last fall, Mastercard also partnered with Ripple and Gemini to explore transaction settlement using RLUSD on the XRP Ledger.
This expansion is not a single new addition, but rather an extension of existing collaboration, broadening the use of stablecoin settlements from limited use cases to a wider range of payment and clearing processes.
Initially covering the Americas market
Mastercard stated that the relevant settlement capabilities will be deployed on networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Tempo, XRP Ledger, and Base. The initial supported regions are the United States and Latin America.
- The initial participants include ARQ and CBW Bank.
- Also includes Cross River and Lead Bank
- Payment service provider Nuvei is also on the initial list.
Mastercard expects the related coverage to continue expanding for the remainder of this year. For the payments industry, this move signals that major card networks are gradually integrating stablecoins from pilot use cases into more core clearing infrastructure.