Overview
- Mastercard announced on Wednesday that it will let issuers and acquirers settle card transactions using six regulated dollar stablecoins, including USDC, PYUSD and RLUSD, across multiple blockchains.
- The program supports intraday, weekend and holiday settlement windows to provide always-on final settlement rather than relying solely on end-of-day bank batch processing.
- Mastercard’s U.S. money-transmission unit MTS US has a New York BitLicense and the company is pursuing the acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK to build the required custody and plumbing.
- Initial participants named by Mastercard include Cross River, Lead Bank, CBW Bank, ARQ and Nuvei, with deployments starting in the United States and Latin America and broader expansion planned through 2026.
- Mastercard says the stablecoin option will run alongside existing fiat rails while keeping current security controls, fraud protections and dispute procedures, and the move could speed liquidity for cross-border payments and corporate treasury flows while raising competitive pressure on other payment networks.