The company will introduce stablecoin, weekend and holiday settlement as the need for real-time money movement increases.
By Helene Braun|Edited by Stephen Alpher Jun 3, 2026, 4:00 a.m. 2 min readMake preferred on (Horacio Villalobos#Corbis/Getty Images)Key details:
- Mastercard plans to settle transactions using various regulated U.S. dollar stablecoins, such as USDC and PYUSD, in addition to its current fiat methods.
- This new system will facilitate intraday, weekend, holiday, and on-chain settlements across platforms including Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, and XRPL, moving Mastercard towards a model that operates continuously.
- Early adopters of this system will include banks and payment firms like Cross River, Lead Bank, CBW Bank, ARQ, and Nuvei, indicating a wider trend of utilizing stablecoins for immediate cross-border settlements.
Mastercard is broadening its settlement capabilities to incorporate regulated stablecoins, a strategic decision that could integrate blockchain payments more significantly into the global financial framework.
The company announced on Wednesday its intention to provide issuers and acquirers with enhanced settlement options, such as intraday, weekend, and holiday settlements, along with on-chain transactions using regulated stablecoins. These enhancements will complement existing fiat settlement methods and are aimed at giving financial entities greater liquidity management flexibility.
Initially, Mastercard will support settlements using Circle’s USDC, PYUSD from Paxos, USDG, USDP, Ripple’s RLUSD, and SoFiUSD. These stablecoins will be accessible across blockchain platforms like Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Polygon (POL), Base, Arbitrum (ARB), and XRPL.
While this announcement might seem technical, it signifies a larger transformation occurring in financial markets. Card transactions are typically authorized in real-time, but the settlement between banks and payment providers usually happens later and is constrained by banking hours. Mastercard’s latest framework aims to create a system that allows for continuous value transfer and settlement.
Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s executive vice president of blockchain and digital assets, stated, "The next phase of stablecoin adoption is about real-world utility, especially in settlement, where timing and liquidity matter most."
This development holds importance beyond just payments. Stablecoins have historically been used mainly for cryptocurrency trading, but banks, payment firms, and asset managers are increasingly recognizing them as effective settlement tools for instant cross-border money transfers that operate outside conventional banking hours.
The launch of this initiative comes as various payment networks and financial institutions compete to modernize their settlement systems. Companies like Circle, Ripple, Paxos, and others are promoting their stablecoin products as viable alternatives to traditional correspondent banking methods for cross-border transactions and treasury management.
Among the first organizations to adopt stablecoin settlement in the U.S. and Latin America will be financial institutions such as Cross River, Lead Bank, CBW Bank, ARQ, and Nuvei.
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