SoFi Swaps Its $25B Card Rails for Stablecoin Tracks 🪙

SoFi Technologies and Mastercard confirmed on Tuesday that stablecoin settlement is now live across SoFi Bank's debit and credit card program, routing transactions through SoFiUSD on Mastercard's global payments network. The bank is migrating its entire card program, which it expects to process more than $25 billion in annualized volume, to the new system, making it the first bank to go live with stablecoin settlement on the Mastercard network. The launch extends settlement and liquidity management using stablecoins to card issuers, acquirers and merchants, and shows how a bank-issued stablecoin can operate alongside existing payment infrastructure. The announcement follows Mastercard's earlier expansion of stablecoin settlement support to Ripple's RLUSD, Circle's USDC and other issuers.

According to a SoFi spokesperson, the change does not remove intermediaries from the card settlement process but introduces an alternative blockchain-based settlement rail. SoFi cardholders will continue using their debit and credit cards in the usual way, while the bank moves settlement onchain to reduce delays. "Merchants do not need to hold stablecoins, build new infrastructure or change how they operate," the company said, noting that SoFi's Big Business unit will continue handling merchant relationships and settlement reporting as before.

Industry participants say the model preserves the role of existing networks while retooling the back end. "I wouldn't call it disintermediation at this stage," Martins Benkitis, co-founder and CEO of emerging-markets liquidity provider Gravity Team, told Cointelegraph. "Visa and Mastercard are still there. The banks are still there. The network is still calculating the obligations, managing the transaction and deciding how participants interact with it." He added that most businesses are unlikely to notice the stablecoin layer, noting, "They'll care that settlement is available when they need it and that the money arrives."

Varun Datta, founder of Truth Ventures, said continuous settlement could reduce delays and the amount of capital firms need to keep in multiple locations, particularly across borders, though he cautioned that those benefits do not necessarily translate into cheaper payments once conversion, compliance and integration costs are factored in. Federal Reserve researchers wrote in a March note that stablecoins could change the economics of payments without necessarily eliminating banks, a view echoed by the SoFi rollout. Visa has pursued a similar track, reporting in April that its stablecoin settlement pilot had reached a $7 billion annualized run rate as it expanded support to nine blockchains and described blockchain settlement as a "viable complement to traditional settlement rails."