SoFi Bank became the first nationally chartered US bank to go live with stablecoin settlement across Mastercard’s global payments network Settlement now runs on SoFiUSD, the stablecoin issued
SoFi Technologies announced that its banking subsidiary, SoFi Bank, is now settling transactions across Mastercard’s global payments network using SoFiUSD, its own stablecoin, making it the first nationally chartered bank in the United States to go live with stablecoin settlement at this scale, according to the company’s announcement. The rollout migrates SoFi Bank’s entire debit and credit card program, expected to process more than $25 billion in annualized transaction volume, onto blockchain-based settlement rails rather than the conventional interbank settlement systems banks typically rely on.
The shift from announcement to live product moved quickly by the standards of bank-grade financial infrastructure. SoFi and Mastercard first disclosed their plan to enable SoFiUSD settlement across Mastercard’s network roughly six months before this go-live announcement, meaning the two companies moved from an initial partnership agreement to production-scale settlement across a multibillion-dollar card program in under two years combined planning and rollout time, a comparatively fast timeline for integrating blockchain settlement into core bank payment infrastructure.
For merchants that accept SoFi-issued cards, the practical benefit centers on settlement speed and cost rather than any change to how a cardholder pays at checkout. Stablecoin-based settlement can move funds between the parties involved in a transaction faster than traditional multi-day interbank settlement cycles, and can reduce the number of intermediary institutions a payment has to pass through before funds reach the merchant’s account.
“In six months, SoFi and Mastercard took stablecoin settlement from an idea to a live product that materially improves how money moves for businesses,” said Anthony Noto, SoFi’s chief executive. Sherri Haymond, Mastercard’s Global Head of Digital Commercialization, said “stablecoins become meaningful when they solve real problems that businesses face every day,” a framing both companies used to position the launch around practical settlement efficiency rather than stablecoins as a speculative or purely crypto-native product.
The move gives SoFi a concrete claim to being first among nationally chartered US banks to run stablecoin settlement at production scale, ahead of larger competitors that have discussed similar plans without yet reaching a comparable live rollout. As other banks evaluate their own stablecoin settlement strategies, SoFi’s migration of a $25 billion card program provides an early real-world data point on how blockchain-based settlement performs once it is handling a nationally chartered bank’s actual transaction volume rather than a limited pilot.
This post first appeared in SoFi Becomes First National Bank to Go Live With Stablecoin Settlement on Mastercard’s Network
