Mastercard has announced a significant expansion of its settlement capabilities to include fiat and regulated stablecoin-based card settlement across its global payments network. According to the company's Wednesday statement, the rollout includes support for Circle's USDC, Paxos-issued PYUSD, USDG, and USDP, Ripple's RLUSD, and SoFi's SoFiUSD, enabling intraday, weekend, and holiday settlement for issuers and acquirers. The expansion supports settlement across multiple blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, Canton, Tempo, and the XRP Ledger, with ARQ (formerly DolarApp), CBW Bank, Cross River, Lead Bank, and Nuvei expected to be among the first institutions supporting stablecoin settlement optionality in the United States and Latin America.
Visa and Brale have initiated a proof-of-concept collaboration to test SBC stablecoin settlement with privacy controls on the Canton Network. The program is designed to evaluate how privacy-enabled blockchain infrastructure can support institutional payment flows, including faster and programmable settlement, while allowing financial institutions and payment firms to maintain control over the visibility of sensitive transaction data. According to The Block, Visa plans to evaluate SBC as an additional stablecoin option for institutional settlement use cases, with native support on the Canton Network enabling testing across real-world payment flows. Cuy Sheffield, Visa's Head of Crypto, stated that "Through our work with Brale, we're exploring how SBC on the Canton Network can support institutional settlement use cases that require both programmability and privacy controls."
This expansion represents Mastercard's continued commitment to stablecoin infrastructure development. In May, the company secured a BitLicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services, establishing the compliance framework required to clear tokenized deposits and payment stablecoins within the jurisdiction. The licensing followed Mastercard's definitive agreement to acquire enterprise stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK for up to $1.8 billion in March 2026, alongside granting a Mastercard Principal Membership to stablecoin card issuer Rain last month. The development comes as the total supply of dollar-pegged tokens is approaching $300 billion, according to The Block's data dashboard, with Tether's USDT accounting for roughly $188 billion and Circle's USDC ranking second at approximately $76 billion.
Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot continues to demonstrate strong growth momentum, with the company reporting a $7 billion annualized run rate as of April, representing a 50% increase from the prior quarter. The pilot now spans nine blockchains, including Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon, Tempo, Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana, and Stellar. The expansion positions Mastercard alongside other payments firms increasing exposure to stablecoin settlement systems, with Visa having enabled stablecoin settlement in 2021 and MoneyGram recently launching its MGUSD stablecoin on Stellar as part of its global payments network expansion. Mastercard's approach ensures consistency, scalability, and interoperability across its global ecosystem while preserving existing protections including security standards, fraud safeguards, and dispute processes.
