Mastercard Expands Settlement to Nights, Weekends, Holidays on Polygon

Today, Mastercard announced it is expanding settlement capabilities to include intraday, weekend, and holiday options across its global network, supporting both fiat currencies and onchain settlement using regulated stablecoins. 

Polygon has been selected to carry that settlement onchain for Mastercard, among other networks.

We’ve seen accelerating stablecoin volume on the network as more institutions and enterprises integrate. 

In May, Polygon processed $79B in stablecoins, leading all chains with 26% of stablecoin activity, ahead of BNB Chain and Solana. Mastercard's settlement leans on regulated stablecoins, including Paxos, which has moved $2.2B+ on Polygon with $700 in fees over the first $1.3B.

This integration comes at a time when our Open Money Stack (OMS) is gearing up for a technical preview and limited availability to a select cohort. The OMS is a single API for end-to-end onchain money movement, globall, relying on Polygon for the foundational blockchain rails.

And now one of the largest payment networks on earth is settling in expanded hours with the OMS. 

Mastercard opens settlement to nights, weekends, and holidays

Mastercard is giving issuers and acquirers more choice in how and when they settle card transactions. 

The new capabilities add intraday, weekend, and holiday settlement windows, and they let partners settle in regulated stablecoins alongside the fiat processes they already use.

The stablecoins supported include Circle's USDC, Paxos-issued PYUSD, USDG, and USDP, Ripple's RLUSD, and SoFi's SoFiUSD. Mastercard is enabling these across a range of networks, including Arbitrum, Base, Canton, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tempo, and XRPL. 

ARQ, CBW Bank, Cross River, Lead Bank, and Nuvei are expected to be among the first to support stablecoin settlement in the United States and Latin America, with further expansion planned through 2026.

Polygon is the foundation of the Open Money Stack

Carrying card settlement for a network like Mastercard's means meeting a bar for reliability, finality, and cost that institutions expect. 

We have spent the last stretch building and upgrading the stack, from the underlying chain to the payment orchestration layer, so that financial institutions can integrate onchain payments end-to-end in one single API.

Polygon supports over 3800 TPS, with fees that are a fraction of a cent. The ideal rails for onchain payments settlement.

For an issuer or acquirer evaluating the Open Money Stack, Mastercards integration with Polygon is another proof point.

We imagine a future where you get more choice in how and when you settle: you can settle in regulated stablecoins through the same Mastercard infrastructure you already use, and you can do it on networks like Polygon that are built to clear value quickly and finally. 

The protections you rely on stay in place.

Get early access to the Open Money Stack today → https://info.polygon.technology/get-early-access