Mastercard bets billions on the tech that could eat its lunch - Prakriti Singh — Prakriti Singh, regional executive vice president for core payments at Mastercard

Mastercard will not disclose what it earns when a transaction settles in stablecoins rather than over its card rails, and it will not predict whether AI shopping agents will grow or shrink the volumes moving across its network. What it will say – repeatedly – is that trust, built over decades, will keep it at the centre of digital commerce as both technologies redraw the payments map.

The company was responding to written questions from TechCentral about the tension at the heart of its strategy: it is investing heavily in stablecoins and agentic AI – the very technologies that threaten to route payments around the card networks entirely.

Asked what Mastercard earns per transaction when value settles in regulated stablecoins such as Circle’s USDC or Ripple’s RLUSD, and how that compares with traditional settlement revenue, the company declined to say.

“Our commercial arrangements vary across products, partners, markets and use cases. We do not disclose our revenue or pricing associated with specific settlement methods,” said Prakriti Singh, executive vice president for core payments in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The question is not academic. Cross-border transfers are where stablecoins are fastest and cheapest – a dynamic playing out in Africa, among the fastest-growing stablecoin markets in the world. TechCentral put it to Mastercard that cross-border is also among its highest-margin revenue lines, and asked what share of that volume it expects to retain over the next three to five years. Again, no numbers. “Stablecoins represent an opportunity to expand how value moves across our network and complement existing payment flows,” said Singh. “Cross-border payments remain a significant growth opportunity for us.”

Crypto programme

Mastercard is not, however, sitting on the sidelines of the stablecoin debate. The company agreed in March to acquire stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK for up to US$1.8-billion, deepening a broader push into the technology. Singh said BVNK’s capabilities “complement our existing work in digital assets and stablecoins” and that Mastercard remains “committed to creating an interoperable ecosystem with partners” through its crypto partner programme, which she said now spans more than 100 industry leaders.

So, what keeps merchants on the network when cheaper stablecoin rails beckon at checkout? “Cost is only one aspect merchants consider when choosing how to accept payments,” Singh said. “Trust is one of the most important factors, along with reach, security, reliability, consumer protections, dispute resolution, fraud management and a seamless checkout experience.”

Read: Visa moves to plug stablecoins into the global payments system

On agentic commerce, where Mastercard’s Agent Pay lets AI agents transact on consumers’ behalf, the company was equally circumspect. Asked how liability is allocated when an AI agent initiates a fraudulent or mistaken transaction, Singh said: “Liability will depend on the specific transaction, the parties involved and the applicable legal and regulatory frameworks.”

She pointed to tokenisation, biometric recognition and fraud detection systems that “analyse more than one trillion data points in real time”, adding that Mastercard has invested more than $12.6-billion in cybersecurity and AI solutions since 2019.

And will comparison-shopping agents that strip out impulse buying grow or shrink transaction volumes on a net basis? “It is still early to predict the long-term impact of AI agents on transaction volumes or spending patterns,” Singh said, though AI agents “have the potential to make commerce more intelligent, personalised and efficient”.

The reticence contrasts with rival Visa, which said this month it had reached an annualised stablecoin settlement run rate of about $7-billion as of March and has enrolled South African banks in its Agentic Ready programme ahead of AI-driven payments going live locally.

Open to bank coins

Asked whether a consortium of large banks issuing their own stablecoins is a greater long-term consideration than USDC or fintech issuers, Singh said success “will depend less on who issues a digital asset and more on trust, security, interoperability and the ability to deliver seamless experiences at scale”. She confirmed Mastercard’s support for Open Standard and its Open USD stablecoin – the consortium of more than 140 companies whose members include FNB, Absa and Nedbank – which is slated to launch later this year.

Even partnering with direct competitors is on the table. Asked about supporting Ripple’s RLUSD when Ripple has its own cross-border payments ambitions, Singh said: “We have a long history of working with a broad range of partners across the payments ecosystem, including banks, fintech players, technology providers and digital asset companies.” Mastercard’s Crypto Credential verification service, she said, is live with exchanges including Mercado Bitcoin, Lirium and Bit2Me, Bybit, Intebix and ATAIX Eurasia.

Pressed on which parts of its moat are hardest to replicate, Singh said: “Our global network, acceptance footprint, fraud prevention, cybersecurity and identity capabilities have been built over decades… We are extending those trusted capabilities into new payment experiences rather than viewing them as separate ecosystems.”