Mastercard CEO Names Stablecoins’ Cross-Border Use Case

Michael Miebach, Mastercard’s chief executive, identified cross-border payments as the clearest current use case for stablecoins on Oct. 9. International transfers can take several days, and customers may not know the full cost in advance because payments pass through correspondent banks and other intermediaries.

Stablecoins could allow companies to transfer money within seconds and reduce the cash they hold while waiting for settlement. Mastercard has identified business-to-business payments, remittances, payouts, settlement and treasury operations as potential areas of demand.

The use case is close to Mastercard’s cross-border payment business. The company reported $3.5 billion in cross-border assessment revenue in the second quarter of 2026, up 20% from a year earlier on a currency-neutral basis. Cross-border payment volume rose 12% during the same period. Mastercard attributed the difference to international pricing. Total net revenue was $9.3 billion.

A stablecoin network could allow dollars and other currencies to move between countries for a predetermined fee. Mastercard’s position is that it would provide connections between payment systems, trust and acceptance rather than operate the transfer rail itself.

Miebach has previously described stablecoins as having no clear use in person-to-merchant payments. Card transactions already authorize payments quickly and include fraud monitoring, chargebacks and consumer protections. Corporate international transfers face settlement delays, intermediary fees and working-capital requirements.

Mastercard completed its $1.8 billion acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK on Aug. 3, 2026. BVNK provides services for holding, moving and converting funds between fiat currencies, stablecoins and tokenized deposits. The platform has been reported to process about $30 billion in annual stablecoin volume.

Mastercard is also involved in Open Standard, a consortium that launched the Open USD stablecoin on Sept. 30 with about $1 billion in reserves. Mastercard makes Open USD available through BVNK alongside fiat currencies and other stablecoins.

Mastercard has forecast little near-term revenue impact from BVNK. It has not disclosed its stablecoin settlement volume or identified corporate customers using BVNK for treasury or supplier payments.

Stablecoins account for a small share of international payments. The World Trade Organization estimated in September that they represented about 3% of such payments. Use in real-world economic transactions was estimated at about $390 billion annually. Trading, arbitrage and activity within blockchain protocols account for much of the broader stablecoin market.