Mastercard brings stablecoin balances into traditional banking and card payments
The launch of Global Money Platform marks Mastercard’s first major integration with BVNK since its August acquisition, with Nuvei and Marqeta among the first companies to adopt the platform.
Mastercard unveils Global Money Platform, bridging stablecoin payments with traditional banking and card services. The innovative platform enables businesses to seamlessly incorporate digital currencies into their existing banking and payment infrastructures, eliminating the need for companies to develop their own stablecoin solutions from scratch. Announced on Thursday, the service represents Mastercard's inaugural significant collaboration with BVNK, the stablecoin infrastructure firm Mastercard acquired in August.
Key features of the Global Money Platform include the ability to hold and convert both fiat currencies and stablecoins, issue stablecoin-linked cards, and facilitate direct payments from stablecoin balances to recipients' local bank accounts. The platform's integration with Mastercard Move, its global money transfer network, allows for the routing of payments to over 17 billion destinations, encompassing bank accounts and cards.
Furthermore, the service links stablecoin balances to Mastercard's extensive merchant network, enabling customers to utilize their stablecoin holdings for transactions with payment cards.
Among the initial integration partners are fintech companies Nuvei and Marqeta, among others. This expansion not only broadens Mastercard's role beyond mere payment processing but also places the company in closer competition with Visa, which launched a comparable platform in July to empower financial institutions to manage, create, and transfer stablecoins under their own brand names.
The development arrives amid growing stablecoin transaction volumes, as indicated by research from Standard Chartered, despite relatively stable circulating supplies of major stablecoins like USDt and USDC throughout the year.
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