Mastercard Expands Stablecoin Settlement With Polygon

Always-On Settlement Beyond Banking Hours

Mastercard has announced a significant expansion of its settlement infrastructure, bringing card settlement to nights, weekends and public holidays through the use of regulated stablecoins on public blockchains. Polygon (@0xPolygon) is among the networks selected to support the initiative, alongside Ethereum, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, XRPL, Canton and Tempo.

Mastercard announced plans to expand its settlement capabilities with additional intraday, weekend and holiday card settlement, supporting both fiat currencies and onchain card settlement using regulated stablecoins. These enhancements give issuers and acquirers greater flexibility in how they settle card-based transactions across Mastercard's global payments network, helping improve liquidity management and expanding choice in how money moves.

Traditionally, card transactions are authorized instantly, but settlement between banks and payment providers often occurs later in batches and is limited by banking hours. The new framework directly addresses that constraint.

Supported Stablecoins and Early Adopters

Mastercard will support settlement using regulated stablecoins including Circle's $USDC, which is already supporting early onchain settlement flows in select markets, as well as Paxos-issued stablecoins including $PYUSD, USDG and USDP, Ripple's $RLUSD and SoFi's SoFiUSD. These stablecoins will be enabled across supported blockchain networks including Arbitrum, Base, Canton, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tempo and XRPL.

ARQ (formerly DolarApp), CBW Bank, Cross River, Lead Bank and Nuvei are expected to be among the first institutions supporting stablecoin settlement optionality in the United States and Latin America. The expanded settlement capabilities will continue to roll out globally, subject to regulation, with additional regions, partners and regulated stablecoins expected to be added over time.

Polygon is using the Mastercard integration to frame its Open Money Stack as enterprise infrastructure for regulated money movement. The chain supports more than 3,800 transactions per second, with fees that remain a fraction of a cent.

Mastercard's executive vice president of blockchain and digital assets, Raj Dhamodharan, said the goal is to help partners operate in an always-on economy. By introducing intraday and weekend settlement options across its global network, Mastercard is expanding how partners manage liquidity and operate in an always-on digital economy while maintaining the trust, resilience and safeguards they expect from Mastercard.

The announcement builds on earlier pilots and live deployments already underway. The move places Mastercard alongside other payments firms increasing exposure to stablecoin settlement systems. Visa has been expanding its own stablecoin-linked settlement pilots across multiple blockchains, while MoneyGram recently launched its MGUSD stablecoin on Stellar as part of its global payments network expansion.

Sources:
Mastercard Official Press Release: Mastercard Expands Settlement Capabilities
CoinDesk: Mastercard Expands Onchain Settlement in Bet on Stablecoins
The Block: Mastercard Expands Stablecoin Settlement Options