The program’s aim is to help scale digital assets and integrate them into existing payment systems, the company said in a release Wednesday. Card networks including Mastercard and Visa Inc. are positioning themselves as bridges between digital assets and the existing payments systems by offering card programs, global merchant acceptance and cross-border settlement to earlier stage crypto firms. Stablecoins have been pitched as a way to cut out card networks and their associated fees. Last year, Shopify Inc. partnered with Stripe Inc. and Coinbase Global Inc. to let merchants accept USDC, a dollar-backed stablecoin from Circle, and announced plans to offer one per cent cash back to customers who pay with stablecoins.
Coinbase also launched a payments platform that tout stablecoins as a payment method already outpacing legacy rails in terms of both scale and flexibility. Mastercard and Visa, which both have stablecoin initiatives that date back to at least 2021, aren’t standing idle. They are instead betting they can make themselves indispensable to the firms pushing for stablecoin adoption in everyday payments.
Industry players are positioning stablecoins as bridges between digital assets and traditional payments, aiming to scale adoption within existing settlement rails. Card networks such as Mastercard and Visa are pursuing card programs, global merchant acceptance, and cross-border settlement for earlier stage crypto firms. These efforts seek to bring crypto capabilities into everyday commerce.
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