SoFi Technologies has partnered with Mastercard to enable settlement with its dollar-denominated stablecoin, SoFiUSD, on Mastercard’s global payments network, allowing issuers and acquirers to settle card transactions in bank-issued digital dollars.
Under the agreement, SoFi Bank NA plans to handle its Mastercard credit and debit transactions with SoFiUSD, while the SoFi Galileo payment technology platform will allow client banks and card issuers to use the stablecoin for transaction settlement on the processor number two network.
SoFiUSD is the first stablecoin to be issued by a nationally chartered and insured U.S. savings bank on a public, permissionless blockchain, allowing transactions to be completed 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the Mastercard network, the company said.
SoFiUSD, which launched in December, is issued by SoFi Bank, an insured depository institution regulated by the OCC, and is backed by 1:1 cash reserves. The Mastercard Multi-Token Network is expected to support stablecoins alongside fiat currencies, tokenized deposits and other digital assets.
The companies said they will also explore additional use cases, including cross-border remittances, business-to-business transfers, programmable cash applications and stablecoin-enabled card applications, subject to regulatory requirements and Mastercard network rules.
The move comes as Mastercard becomes more active in the stablecoin space. In November, the company partnered with Thunes to expand stablecoin wallet payments through Mastercard Move, enabling near-real-time transfers to regulated stablecoin wallets through the Thunes Direct Global Network.
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Rival Visa expands settlement and payment infrastructure
Mastercard is not alone in integrating stablecoins into its payment infrastructure, and major processor Visa is also expanding the use of digital dollars in settlement and payment services.
In September, Visa began testing stablecoin-based cross-border payments, launching a Visa Direct pilot that allows select banks to pre-fund international transfers using Circle USDC (USDC) and (EURC). The payments giant later expanded support for four stablecoins across four blockchains, allowing conversion to more than 25 fiat currencies.
Visa has also moved to direct stablecoin payments. In November, it launched a Visa Direct pilot that allows businesses to send funds directly to recipients’ stablecoin wallets, allowing freelancers and marketplaces to receive USD-denominated tokens instead of traditional bank transfers.
Last month, when Quantoz Payments became a major member of Visa in the Netherlands, that expansion expanded overseas, allowing it to support Visa debit cards with adjustable e-money tokens and fintechs offering stablecoin-related products in Europe.
According to DefiLlama, the total stablecoin market cap at the time of writing was about $311.28 billion. The transaction volume reached a record $969.9 billion in August 2025, and is forecast to reach $1 trillion by December 2026, CoinLedger reported in September.
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