Banks, fintechs and other companies can now build Mastercard accounts that hold traditional currencies and stablecoins side by side into their own branded apps, through the Mastercard Global Money Platform, available now through BVNK. A stablecoin is a crypto token that tracks a traditional currency, usually the dollar.
It is the first major product built on BVNK since Mastercard bought the company in August, in a deal worth up to $1.8 billion.
Traditional currencies and stablecoins in one account
A bank or a fintech reaches the account through a single software connection, or API. Mastercard says conversion between the traditional currency balance and the stablecoin balance runs in real time through that connection.
In the companies’ launch post, Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s executive vice president for blockchain and digital assets, and Chris Harmse, BVNK co-founder and chief business officer, say the balance can be custodial, with the provider holding it, or self-custodial, with the customer holding it. Rewards can apply to balances that qualify, the post says, and the release describes those rewards as configurable. No rate was published.
A person using the bank’s app or the fintech’s app sees the account there. The release adds that a company can also use the platform for its own treasury, payments and settlement, and can start with the pieces it needs and add others as those pieces are offered.
Payouts into bank accounts, and virtual cards
Local-currency payouts go out through Mastercard Move, Mastercard’s set of money-movement tools, which Mastercard says reaches more than 17 billion endpoints. Here, that means a local-currency payment into the recipient’s bank account. Coverage of those payouts is expected to grow in 2027, to more than 40 currencies spread over 200-plus countries and territories.
Card issuing is available in 130-plus countries, the release says, and cardholders will be able to spend stablecoin balances at hundreds of millions of merchant locations on that acceptance network.
The launch post says the cards are virtual.
According to ETHNews, a shop paid with a stablecoin-linked card is paid through its acquiring bank, the bank that already handles that shop’s card sales, as with any card purchase, and the shop needs no wallet.
Nuvei, Marqeta and the first connections
Nuvei and Marqeta will be among the first companies to connect, the release says, along with Ontop, Bolt Group and Almond FinTech. Marqeta issues cards for other brands.
Mastercard’s own example is a manufacturer that takes in several currencies and pays suppliers in other countries, with today’s work in separate accounts, separate vendors and cash set aside in each market. Those advance balances tie up cash and slow the work, and the example treats the platform as one place to manage liquidity, switch between traditional currencies and stablecoins, and handle incoming and outgoing payments.
The launch post says the integration reaches more than 20 blockchain networks and payment rails. New names on the list are Stellar, Arc, Monad, Plasma and Tempo. Stablecoins named there include USDC and OUSD.
What is still not live
The Mastercard release says later support is planned for agentic commerce, payments that a software agent, including an AI system, can start, and for other regulated forms of money, including tokenized deposits, a bank deposit recorded as a token.
ETHNews also reports that fees, volume targets and a complete list of supported stablecoins are still unpublished. USDC and OUSD, named in the launch post, are examples of coins on the integration.
Visa Direct the same day
The same day, stablecoin prefunding on Visa Direct, which puts USDC up before a payout goes out, moved from a pilot into commercial use, Visa’s investor release says. The pilots began in 2025. Inyo Global, which builds payment systems for money transmitters, fintechs, banks and other payment companies, is the first company offering the service. Its clients can put USDC up ahead of a cross-border payout on Visa Direct, nearly in real time, so they no longer have to depend only on the usual funding windows.
The same release says Inyo’s platform sends payouts to more than 180 countries. A business can use this stablecoin funding if it qualifies, and the offer has to be open in its country.
This article is not investment advice.
