Mastercard CEO says cross-border payments are where stablecoins are winning

Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach has picked a favorite stablecoin use case, and it isn’t buying coffee. In an interview with Bloomberg on October 9, 2026, he said stablecoins are gaining the most traction in cross-border payments. Why cross-border is the sweet spot Miebach’s argument starts with a familiar complaint. Sending money across borders through traditional rails can take several days to settle, and the fees attached are often hard to decipher. Stablecoins, in Miebach’s view, could compress that wait to something close to instant. A stablecoin is a crypto token designed to hold a steady value, usually pegged one-to-one to a currency like the US dollar. Because it moves on a blockchain rather than through a chain of correspondent banks, it can travel without stopping at each bank along the way for its own paperwork and fees. The payoff he highlighted is working capital. When a business gets paid in minutes instead of days, that cash can be put to use sooner instead of sitting in limbo between banks. Miebach also framed stablecoins as a tool for moving value, not as an investment product. Mastercard’s stablecoin buildout Mastercard supports several stablecoins across multiple b...