Mastercard Taps Ripple's RLUSD Stablecoin for Card Settlement

Mastercard is collaborating with Gemini to pilot Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin for card settlement. Christian Rau, Mastercard's senior vice president for digital assets and blockchain, announced that the firm is working on integrating RLUSD into its network.

The goal is to settle card flows in RLUSD across Mastercard's vast network of 150 million acceptance locations and 3.8 billion cards. This approach would allow stablecoins to be used as another settlement currency within their system.

Rau believes that stablecoins have entered the mainstream of financial services and can speed up cross-border transactions. He pointed out that RLUSD has been onboarded by several exchanges, custodians, and payment firms seeking XRP Ledger settlement since its launch in December 2024.

The pilot is expected to go live in the first half of this year, with Rau framing it as part of Mastercard's push to integrate stablecoins into existing rails rather than running a parallel system.