Mastercard expands on-chain settlement in bet on stablecoins and always-on finance

The company plans to offer stablecoin, weekend and holiday settlement as demand grows for real-time movement of money. What to know : Mastercard will begin settling transactions in several regulated U.S. dollar stablecoins, including USDC and PYUSD, alongside its existing fiat processes. The new framework will allow intraday, weekend, holiday and on-chain settlement across networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum and XRPL, moving Mastercard closer to an always-on model. Banks and payment firms like Cross River, Lead Bank, CBW Bank, ARQ and Nuvei will be early adopters, reflecting a broader shift toward using stablecoins as instant, cross-border settlement assets.