Mastercard expands card settlement to USDC, RLUSD

Mastercard expanded its card-payment settlement capabilities to allow regulated stablecoins such as Circle’s USDC and Ripple’s RLUSD to be used for credit card settlements. The company also added intraday, holiday and weekend settlement windows on multiple blockchains.

Mastercard will support Paxos-issued tokens PYUSD, USDG and USDP, and SoFi’s SoFiUSD. Settlement will be enabled on Ethereum, Solana, Base (an Ethereum layer-2 incubated by Coinbase), the XRP Ledger and the payments-focused Tempo network.

The change gives card issuers and acquirers options to settle transactions on-chain outside traditional banking hours and to manage liquidity at different times of day. Initial U.S. and Latin American settlement flows will be handled by ARQ (formerly DolarApp), CBW Bank, Cross River, Lead Bank and Nuvei. Mastercard plans to expand participation and regions through the year.

Mastercard has used USDC for settlement in some markets under its integration with Circle and ran a pilot with Ripple and Gemini last year to test RLUSD settlement on the XRP Ledger.

Mastercard obtained a BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services. The company described the license as part of a long-term plan to support stablecoins and tokenized deposits while meeting compliance standards.

Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s executive vice president of blockchain and digital assets, described the next phase of stablecoin adoption as ‘about real-world utility, especially in settlement, where timing and liquidity matter most,’ and highlighted the new intraday and weekend options across Mastercard’s global network.

Circle’s chief commercial officer Kash Razzaghi noted Mastercard’s expanded capabilities provide ‘greater choice in how value is transferred and settled.’ Ripple’s senior vice president of stablecoins Jack McDonald called the expansion a validation that blockchain technology is ready for critical payment infrastructure.