Mastercard is taking another step toward bridging traditional finance and Web3. Through an expanded partnership with Circle, the payments giant will enable acquirers and merchants across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EEMEA) to settle transactions in USDC and EURC, marking a major move toward integrating stablecoins into mainstream commerce.
Here, Prakriti Singh, EVP, Core Payments, EEMEA, Mastercard outlines how the initiative could reshape cross-border payments, remittances, and digital trade while positioning the company at the forefront of the shift to tokenised money.
What does this expanded partnership with Circle mean for Mastercard in EEMEA, and how will it directly benefit merchants and acquirers across the region?
We are actively working to integrate stablecoins, digital currencies designed to maintain a steady value, into the financial mainstream. We’d like to ensure they meet the same standards of convenience, security and dependability as traditional payments. Our goal is to invest in the infrastructure, governance and partnerships needed to support the evolution from fiat to tokenized and programmable money.
Our expanded collaboration with Circle means that for the first time, merchants and acquirers in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) can leverage stablecoins across our global payments network and benefit from our trusted technology, reach and scale. This move will empower acquiring institutions to get their settlement in USDC or EURC – fully reserved stablecoins issued by regulated affiliates of Circle – which they can then use to settle with merchants.
This initiative highlights our role as a bridge between traditional finance and Web3, paving the way for a new era of efficient, trusted and inclusive digital trade across emerging markets.
How do stablecoins like USDC and EURC change the dynamics of settlement compared with traditional payment rails?
Stablecoins, like USDC and EURC, have the potential to complement and enhance existing payment infrastructures. Stablecoins are poised to play a growing role in the evolving cross-border payments landscape, helping people and businesses move financial value faster and with less friction. Operating on public, permissionless blockchains that function continuously, stablecoins provide near-real-time settlement capabilities globally, typically at minimal transaction costs.
In addition to powering more efficient financial transactions, stablecoins and their underlying blockchain technology could drive momentum toward innovations like faster settlement cycles for certain asset classes.
Our continued support of USDC, EURC, USDP, USDG, FIUSD and PYUSD lends itself to more integration as the ecosystem evolves.
By maintaining a multi-coin approach, we aim to spearhead the next wave of digital currency innovation while aligning with market needs and regulatory standards.
Remittances remain a critical payment flow in EEMEA — do you see stablecoin settlements helping reduce costs and increase speed in these high-volume corridors?
Remittances are one of the fundamental components of economic survival and stability. Some of the areas where we believe stablecoin culd add value is in reducing time and costs for cross-border remittances, enabling near-instant payouts for families, transforming how content creators and gig workers get paid, and powering programmable B2B transactions.
Traditionally, financial institutions pre-fund their cross-border payments service providers with fiat using a bank account. Pre-funding with stablecoins means that an FI can also use stablecoin to meet their obligation with their cross-border payment service providers. This can result in liquidity benefits.
Stablecoin networks operate continuously
We already enable this kind of settlement speed in consumer payments but this is not true in B2B more broadly. That’s why, stablecoins are increasingly being recognised for their potential to streamline business-to-business (B2B) transactions with their real time nature but also programmability.
Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are gaining traction globally. How do you view their role alongside stablecoins and e-money in transforming the payments ecosystem?
While the momentum for CBDCs has evolved, their development remains an important area of exploration for central banks worldwide. We are closely monitoring this space, alongside the growing adoption of stablecoins and e-money, as part of our broader commitment to payments innovation and digital transformation.
We are committed to enabling on our network that reaches hundreds of banks and millions of merchants with the currencies of choice for consumers within the framework of local regulations.
Our blockchain and digital assets experts are exploring the uses of the latest technology, its implementation and regulations, and will continue to push to be at the forefront of tech innovation.
Looking ahead, what adoption trends do you expect to define the next five years of digital payments in EEMEA, and how is Mastercard positioning itself to lead in that shift?
Businesses and consumers increasingly demand faster, simpler and more secure ways to transact, making innovation and trust critical in driving adoption. Over the next few years, we see an increase in tokenisation, deepening of adoption of AI in securing commerce, growth in agent assisted commerce and expansion of use cases for stablecoin particularly in cross-border and B2B.
We can also see that there could potentially be multiple digital assets across multiple chains and this is where we can play a role in delivering interoperability and bringing the bridge between centralized finance and digital assets world.
We’re committed to building the infrastructure and partnerships necessary to integrate secure and compliant digital assets into the global financial ecosystem. Through our Mastercard multi-token network (MTN), we’re creating a global framework to harness the potential of stablecoins, ensuring they are governed and trusted for everyday use.
Technologies are merging faster than ever, refining capabilities, generating new use cases and even creating new business models. In this dynamic landscape, we at Mastercard remain focused on stability, compliance and consumer protection.
Our role is to partner across the ecosystem, helping banks, fintech companies, regulators and businesses harness the potential of tokenisation and blockchain to unlock new opportunities.