San Francisco, March 4, 2026, 13:00 PST
- SoFi says it will work with Mastercard to use its SoFiUSD stablecoin for payments settlement on the card network
- CEO Anthony Noto bought 56,000 shares in the open market, a regulatory filing showed
- SOFI shares rose about 0.8% on Wednesday, while Mastercard slipped slightly
SoFi Technologies, Inc. (SOFI) said on Tuesday it had expanded its partnership with Mastercard (MA) to enable settlement using SoFiUSD, the fintech’s U.S. dollar-linked stablecoin, across Mastercard’s global payments network. SoFi said its bank unit is expected to settle its own Mastercard-powered credit and debit transactions using SoFiUSD.
The timing matters because settlement — the back-end movement of funds between banks after a card purchase — can be slow and expensive, especially across borders. Stablecoins, crypto tokens designed to track the U.S. dollar, are pitched as a way to move money around the clock without waiting for banking cutoffs.
Card networks, including Mastercard and rival Visa, have been experimenting with blockchain-linked rails as they look for faster ways to move value. SoFi is trying to do it from inside the banking system, leaning on its chartered bank and its payments technology business.
Under the deal, the companies said they will explore how issuers and acquirers — the banks on either side of a card payment — can settle card-based transactions with Mastercard using SoFiUSD. They flagged use cases such as cross-border remittances and business-to-business transfers, and said SoFiUSD is expected to be supported on Mastercard’s Multi-Token Network, a platform aimed at linking traditional money with stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits.
“SoFiUSD is at the heart of our strategy,” SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said. Sherri Haymond, Mastercard’s global head of digital commercialization, said “we’re expanding how trusted digital currencies can be used at global scale.” The companies pointed to industry estimates putting stablecoin transactions at about $30 billion a day. 1
SoFi shares were up about 0.8% at $18.75 on Wednesday, valuing the company at roughly $31.6 billion. Mastercard shares were down about 0.1%.
A regulatory filing showed Noto bought 56,000 shares on March 2 at a weighted average price of $17.8842, spending about $1.0 million in open-market purchases. The form said the trades were executed between $17.50 and $18.205 and left him with 11,675,452 shares held directly. 2
SoFi said SoFiUSD is issued by SoFi Bank, N.A., which it described as an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency-regulated insured depository institution, and backed one-for-one by cash for immediate redemption. The company said it has 13.7 million members, and that its Galileo technology platform serves 128 million accounts globally. 3
But stablecoin settlement is still more blueprint than habit. Stablecoin rules are shifting, and the partnership hinges on banks and merchants choosing to move real settlement flows onto a token; Mastercard’s own network rules and local regulation could narrow where SoFiUSD is used.
Neither company disclosed financial terms or a rollout timetable. Both framed the project as an effort to build interoperability between stablecoins, fiat currencies and tokenized bank deposits.
