Mastercard is giving banks and payment firms more ways to settle card transactions outside standard banking hours, including weekends and holidays, and via regulated stablecoins in a bid to keep pace with an always-on digital economy.
- Mastercard is giving banks and payment firms more ways to settle card transactions outside standard banking hours, including weekends and...
- The company said on Wednesday that issuers and acquirers on its network will now have access to intraday, weekend and...
- The new options let them choose when and how they settle, based on their own liquidity and regulatory needs.
- Those will run on multiple blockchains such as Arbitrum, Base, Canton, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tempo and XRPL.
Keep reading for the full breakdown on Blockchain — everything you need to know is covered below.
The company said on Wednesday that issuers and acquirers on its network will now have access to intraday, weekend and holiday settlement for both fiat currencies and on-chain transactions using stablecoins.
Over the years, settlement on the network has largely followed traditional banking hours. That created some gaps for partners handling time-sensitive flows. The new options let them choose when and how they settle, based on their own liquidity and regulatory needs.
“The next phase of stablecoin adoption is about real-world utility, especially in settlement, where timing and liquidity matter most,” said Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s head of blockchain and digital assets.
Which stablecoins will Mastercard support
The company is not launching its own stablecoin. Instead, it will support settlement using regulated tokens, including Circle’s USDC, Paxos-issued coins (PYUSD, USDG, USDP), Ripple’s RLUSD and SoFi’s SoFiUSD. Those will run on multiple blockchains such as Arbitrum, Base, Canton, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tempo and XRPL.
Circle’s chief commercial officer, Kash Razzaghi, said the move addresses a clear demand of “organisations which are increasingly seeking infrastructure that can operate beyond traditional banking hours.”
Early adopters in the U.S. and Latin America include ARQ (formerly DolarApp), CBW Bank, Cross River, Lead Bank and Nuvei. Further expansion is planned through 2026, subject to local regulation.
Meanwhile, Ripple’s Jack McDonald, who leads stablecoin efforts, said RLUSD’s inclusion reflects “growing demand for trusted, regulated stablecoins built for real-world financial use cases.”
Mastercard stressed that the new settlement options run on the same global infrastructure partners it already uses, with the same security, fraud, and dispute protections.
The company described the expansion as scalable and network-level, not a series of one-off experiments.
The rollout builds on earlier Mastercard pilots and live deployments. More regions, partners, and stablecoins are expected to be added over the next year.