Mastercard to offer Open USD stablecoin through its BVNK platform

Mastercard plans to make Open USD, a dollar-pegged stablecoin known as OUSD, available to businesses through BVNK. BVNK is the stablecoin infrastructure company Mastercard agreed to buy earlier this year. What Mastercard is actually doing Open USD launched on September 30, 2026. It was built by the Open Standard consortium, not by Mastercard itself. That distinction matters. Mastercard is acting as the distributor and the plumbing, not the issuer. OUSD runs on several blockchains at once: Base, Ethereum, Solana, and Tempo. For businesses, that means the token can move across multiple networks rather than living on a single chain. The consortium behind OUSD is not small. More than 200 companies have joined Open Standard, and together they are contributing more than $1 billion in near-term liquidity. Mastercard’s stated approach is to lean on infrastructure it already has. The company is positioning itself to support different forms of value without creating new types of money on its own. Why BVNK is the delivery vehicle Mastercard acquired BVNK on August 3, 2026, in a deal worth up to $1.8 billion. The structure includes a $1.5 billion base price plus contingent payments of up to $3...