Mastercard and Visa are extending stablecoin technology into the systems that settle card payments between financial institutions, while leaving the consumer checkout experience largely unchanged. Mastercard completed its acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK in August 2026 and has expanded its network’s settlement options to include regulated stablecoins. Visa, meanwhile, is working with Stripe-owned Bridge and Lead Bank on on-chain settlement for card programs. The shift became more concrete in September, when SoFi Bank moved its credit and debit card issuing portfolio to live settlement using its bank-issued SoFiUSD. That portfolio represents more than $25 billion in annualized card volume, a measure distinct from the value settled in stablecoins. Visa separately reported an annualized stablecoin settlement run rate exceeding $25 billion in October. The networks’ initiatives target the back-end movement and reconciliation of funds, including periods when traditional bank settlement rails are unavailable; they do not require merchants to accept cryptocurrency.

The European Central Bank has launched Pontes, a bridge connecting tokenised-asset platforms to the Eurosystem’s TARGET Services for wholesale settlement in central bank money. The arrangement enables atomic delivery-versus-payment settlement, in which an asset and its payment move together. It does not yet make wholesale settlement available around the clock: Pontes depends on T2 operating hours and requires tokenised central bank money balances to be defunded at the end of the day. ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone says the Eurosystem plans to extend Pontes operating hours substantially by mid-2027 and reach 24/7/365 availability in 2028. Separately, the Bank for International Settlements’ Project Agorá has tested cross-border payments using a shared programmable ledger that brings tokenised commercial bank deposits and central bank reserves into a single settlement process. Both initiatives address delays and liquidity demands in wholesale payments, but neither makes continuous, cross-border settlement available today.

Project Agorá’s real-value testing settled 30 live, multi-currency transactions worth approximately CHF 800,000, with atomic settlement averaging about 80 seconds. The tests involved 28 commercial institutions and five central banks. The result shows how tokenised commercial bank deposits and central bank reserves could support faster cross-border settlement, though it does not establish that settlement latency has been eliminated. The project’s prototype found that tokenisation did not change the legal character or regulatory obligations of deposits and reserves. Its design also let participating institutions conduct compliance checks concurrently. Seven more commercial banks joined in September 2026, taking private-sector participation to nearly 50 institutions. At Sibos in October, banking executives described the testing pipeline as a step towards production trials alongside the European Central Bank’s Pontes platform. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York did not participate in the live test transactions, an important qualification for the US dollar tests.

Project Agorá settled approximately CHF 800,000 in live, multi-currency transactions during a July 2026 testing phase. The work examined a cross-border payment model that places tokenised commercial bank deposits on a shared ledger while holding tokenised central bank reserves on jurisdictional ledgers. Five central banks participated directly in live-reserve settlement, although the project’s wider central-bank group has since expanded to eight with the Bank of Canada’s entry. The project reports an average settlement time of 80 seconds across six currencies and uses smart contracts to run anti-money laundering, sanctions and fraud checks simultaneously. Legal analyses found that tokenisation did not change the underlying character of deposits or reserves in participating jurisdictions. The findings support further work on deposit-based wholesale settlement, but the supplied research does not establish that the approach outperforms stablecoins. The Eurosystem plans to draw on Agorá’s architecture for Projects Pontes and Appia.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has issued tokenised MAS Bills in live trials on its Singapore Dollar Test Network, settling them with wholesale central bank digital currency. An initial S$1 million one-week tranche was followed by a S$10 million tranche scheduled to mature on October 23, 2026. MAS says placing tokenised securities and central bank money on common infrastructure supports monetary stability and settlement finality. Separately, the Bank for International Settlements and the Institute of International Finance completed real-value testing for Project Agorá. Twenty-eight financial institutions and five central banks executed 30 transactions worth CHF 800,000 across six currencies, averaging 80 seconds per settlement. The initiatives illustrate why central banks favour wholesale CBDCs and tokenised bank deposits for institutional transactions: they aim to preserve settlement in central bank money and the existing banking system. Stablecoins remain a competing model, with industry participants citing their liquidity and round-the-clock availability.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has added Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand as policymaker members of BLOOM, its initiative for cross-border settlement using tokenized commercial bank deposits and regulated stablecoins. Announced on October 23, 2026, the expansion also brings in nine industry and multilateral participants, including Visa, Mastercard, Ripple, Maybank and the World Bank Group. BLOOM is working on whether digital money can be accepted and settled across jurisdictions, move between different ledger networks and carry programmable compliance controls. Those questions are particularly relevant where foreign exchange rules restrict convertibility or offshore holdings. Bank Negara Malaysia is separately running three domestic wholesale pilots involving ringgit stablecoins and tokenized deposits and expects to issue guidance by late 2026. Existing work includes a Maybank cross-border ringgit-to-Singapore-dollar transaction and a Ripple test of conditional trade finance payments. Neither establishes that BLOOM has resolved the regulatory and technical barriers to broader cross-border settlement.