Mastercard continues crypto push with $1.8B BVNK acquisition
Mastercard Incorporated (MA) announced on Tuesday that it is acquiring stablecoin infrastructure startup BVNK for $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent payments.
The deal was made to further expand the credit card company's end-to-end support of digital assets. The company cited the increased regulatory clarity around digital currencies that is happeing in multiple countries which is leading financial institutions and fintechs to offer payment services enabled by stablecoins and tokenized deposits.
Mastercard said that crypto wallets are embracing cards as "the credential of choice to bring utility to digital currencies in consumer payments."
"Incremental opportunities for stablecoins and tokenized deposits lie in use cases like cross-border remittances, payouts, P2P and B2B payments," the company said in a press release. "Over time, speed and programmability may also solve critical pain points in capital markets, treasury management and other commercial areas."
Mastercard and BVNK will be able to "deliver trusted interoperability at scale" to connect payments between fiat and digital currencies across multiple blockchains, the company added.
“We expect that most financial institutions and fintechs will in time provide digital currency services, be it with stablecoins or tokenized deposits,” Jorn Lambert, chief product officer of Mastercard, said in a statement. “We want to support them and their customers with a best in class, highly compliant, interoperable offering that brings the benefits of tokenized money to the real world.”
One of the linchpins of the new regulatory clarity around digital assets was the passage of the GENIUS Act by the US government in June, making it the country's first-ever stablecoin legislation.
The bill lays out rules for US dollar-backed stablecoins, requiring one-to-one reserve backing in liquid assets like Treasuries and oversight by federal or state regulators.
In a blog post announcing the acquisition, the UK-based BVNK called Mastercard "one of the world's most trusted global payments networks" that offers it settlement rail infrastructure and comprehensive regulatory coverage. It also noted that Mastercard brings the kind of brand credibility that financial institutions and businesses depend on.
BVNK noted that stablecoins can help solve the fragmentation of the financial infrastructure, while also speeding up cross-border payments and lowering the costs of settlement.
"This partnership matters far beyond BVNK and Mastercard," the company said. "It signals a fundamental shift: stablecoins are no longer an experiment, they're becoming the base layer for how the world moves money."
BVNK processes over $30 billion in payments annually. It was founded in 2021.
Mastercard last week launched a new Crypto Partner Program that brings together 85 companies from across the digital asset and payments industries in order to "explore how blockchain-based systems can connect with traditional payment rails used by banks, merchants and consumers around the world," as Coindesk reported.
The companies include Circle Internet Group (CRCL), PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL), Ripple, Paxos, Gemini and Binance.