Mastercard Tests Ripple Stablecoin for Card Settlements
Mastercard is testing Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin for card settlements with Gemini, marking another step towards integrating cryptocurrency infrastructure into traditional payment systems.
The pilot program, which aims to settle card flows in RLUSD by the first half of this year, was detailed by Christian Rau, Mastercard's senior vice president for digital assets and blockchain. According to Rau, the company is working with Gemini on the project, exploring how to integrate stablecoins into existing rails rather than running a parallel system.
Rau sees stablecoins as having entered the mainstream of financial services, capable of speeding up cross-border flows. With its vast network of 150 million acceptance locations and 3.8 billion cards, Mastercard believes that integrating stablecoins can offer benefits that fiat currencies cannot match today. Rau framed the effort as part of Mastercard's push to fold stablecoins into existing rails.