Mastercard Expands Stablecoin Settlement via Circle's USDC, Ripple's RLUSD and Beyond
Summary
Mastercard is expanding stablecoin-based settlement for card transactions, adding intraday, holiday, and weekend settlement options to support a 24/7 payment system. The rollout will use regulated stablecoins including Circle’s USDC, Ripple’s RLUSD, Paxos-issued tokens such as PYUSD, USDG, and USDP, and SoFiUSD. Settlement will be enabled across several blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Tempo, the XRP Ledger, and Base. The first supported markets will be the U.S. and Latin America, with partners such as ARQ, CBW Bank, Cross River, Lead Bank, and Nuvei. Mastercard says the move is aimed at improving liquidity management and giving issuers and acquirers more flexible settlement timing beyond traditional banking hours.
