SoFi Launches Stablecoin Settlement on Mastercard Network

SoFi has begun settling its debit and credit card transactions in its own stablecoin on Mastercard's global payments network, making it the first bank to run its full card program on blockchain-based settlement.

For anyone who already holds SoFiUSD, the change signals that the token now carries card volume from a U.S. national bank. SoFiUSD is issued by SoFi Bank, an OCC-regulated, nationally chartered bank, and is redeemable 1:1 for U.S. dollars from reserves the firm describes as "primarily cash." The token lives on Ethereum and Solana.

For the merchants who take a SoFi-branded Mastercard, the practical effect is simpler. SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said they do not need to hold SoFiUSD or change their existing payment systems to use the service. Through SoFi's Big Business Banking platform, merchants can receive settlement funds in a SoFi Bank account and withdraw them as cash around the clock at no cost, which is the live answer to the "instant settlement" pitch. Mastercard says the broader rollout will support intraday, weekend and holiday settlement for issuers and acquirers.

The card program is expected to process more than $25 billion in annualized volume. Mastercard has not published comparable figures for its other stablecoin-settlement pilots, so it is not yet clear how SoFi's target stacks up against Visa's USDC rails or PayPal's PYUSD settlement work.

SoFi and Mastercard built the system in six months, on top of a March agreement that scoped SoFiUSD for SoFi's own card transactions. Noto said the two firms "took stablecoin settlement from an idea to a live product that materially improves how money moves for businesses." Mastercard's global head of digital commercialization, Sherri Haymond, said stablecoins "become meaningful when they solve real problems that businesses face every day," and that the SoFi tie-up is "moving beyond exploration to implementation, bringing regulated stablecoin settlement into a live production environment while preserving the trust, scale and safeguards expected from Mastercard."

What the announcement does not say: SoFi has not named the large U.S. merchants it says are already in talks about stablecoin settlement, beyond describing them as multinational retailers and technology service platforms. The companies have also outlined plans to offer the settlement option to other issuing banks through SoFi's Galileo technology platform, but no partner banks have been named. SoFi has not disclosed how much of the SoFiUSD reserve sits in cash versus short-dated Treasuries, nor which auditor signs off on the attestation.

Mastercard's broader stablecoin settlement roadmap now spans eight networks: Arbitrum, Base, Canton, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tempo and the XRP Ledger. Mastercard expanded those plans in June to cover USDC, PYUSD, RLUSD and other regulated stablecoins. SoFi and Mastercard said they are also exploring cross-border payments and remittances as a next use case for SoFiUSD on the network.