Mastercard to Settle Card Payments via Stablecoins

Mastercard is quietly upgrading its payments back-end by testing the use of regulated stablecoins to settle card transactions. The pilot, conducted in collaboration with SoFi Technologies and its Galileo platform, aims to move settlement between banks off traditional rails and onto digital dollars, while keeping the consumer checkout experience unchanged at the point of sale.

The initiative centers on SoFiUSD, a dollar-backed stablecoin issued by SoFi Bank, N.A., and is positioned within Mastercard’s broader Multi-Token Network (MTN) vision for tokenized money. As the industry watches the evolution of stablecoins from crypto-native instruments to mainstream settlement rails, Mastercard’s approach signals a strategic pivot: the networks that power card payments may increasingly rely on regulated digital assets to clear and settle transactions faster and with greater liquidity efficiency.

The company’s plan also places it in a competitive stance with Visa, which has already piloted stablecoin-backed settlement capabilities for cross-border transfers and merchant payouts. Key takeaways Mastercard is testing stablecoin-backed settlement, aiming to streamline the post-transaction clearing process across its global network.

SoFi Bank, N.A. will use SoFiUSD to settle Mastercard credit and debit transactions; Galileo Financial Technologies will enable other banks and fintech issuers to participate in stablecoin settlement through Mastercard’s system. The initiative targets back-end settlement rather than altering the consumer payment experience, preserving the familiar card workflow at checkout.

Mastercard’s Multi-Token Network is designed to support multiple forms of tokenized money, including stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and digital representations of fiat currencies. Regulatory clarity and cross-border liquidity considerations remain pivotal as stablecoins move toward mainstream financial infrastructure; market data in 2026 show a growing stablecoin sector with substantial transaction volumes ahead.

Back-end settlement reimagined Behind the scenes, Mastercard’s approach reframes how settlement between issuing and acquiring banks could occur. When a consumer initiates a card payment, the traditional flow involves authorization, recording, merchant confirmation, and later settlement through standard banking channels.

The new model concentrates settlement on the back-end, potentially using a regulated stablecoin such as SoFiUSD to fulfill the investment obligations between banks, rather than relying solely on fiat transfers. Under this structure, a typical transaction would proceed as usual at the point of sale, but when the time comes to settle the obligation between the issuer and the acquirer, a stablecoin-based transfer could be executed.

Stablecoins operate on blockchain infrastructure, offering the possibility of around-the-clock settlement that is not constrained by conventional banking hours. If successful, this could reduce settlement latency and improve liquidity management for financial institutions involved in card networks.

How stablecoin settlement would operate In a practical sense, the workflow might look like this: a customer pays with a card in their local currency; Mastercard determines the net settlement obligation between the issuing bank and the acquiring bank; instead of exclusively relying on traditional rails, both parties could settle using a regulated stablecoin like SoFiUSD through the Mastercard system.

SoFiUSD is issued by a federally regulated bank and is described as backed by cash reserves on a 1:1 basis, positioning it closer to bank-issued digital money than to a crypto-native asset. Such a model aligns with a broader trend toward programmable, low-latency settlements that can cross borders and operate outside standard banking hours.