SoFi began settling its entire debit and credit card transaction volume using blockchain-based infrastructure and its SoFiUSD stablecoin on September 24, 2026, replacing traditional banking rails for a program expected to handle more than $25 billion in annualized volume.
The financial services company is executing the migration in partnership with Mastercard. For SoFi customers, the shift occurs entirely behind the scenes; cardholders continue using debit and credit cards as they normally would. The change affects only the settlement layer, where obligations between participants are cleared and funds move.
Stablecoins are now settling payments behind existing card networks, allowing money to move around the clock without altering how consumers pay. Blockchain settlement replaces the traditional banking rails historically used to move value between banks and payment processors, not the card networks themselves.
Visa Pilot Sets Earlier Precedent
SoFi’s migration follows momentum in the sector. Visa announced in April 2026 that its stablecoin settlement pilot had reached a $7 billion annualized run rate and expanded support to nine blockchains. The Federal Reserve published research in March 2026 examining how stablecoins could reshape payment economics without necessarily eliminating banks from the process.
Martins Benkitis, co-founder and CEO of Gravity Team, an emerging-markets liquidity provider, emphasized that blockchain settlement does not constitute disintermediation. “I wouldn’t call it disintermediation at this stage. 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,” Benkitis said.
Speed Does Not Automatically Lower Costs
Blockchain settlement enables faster transaction finality. However, speed on a blockchain does not automatically translate to cheaper end-to-end payments, according to venture capitalist Varun Datta, founder of Truth Ventures. Datta cited conversion costs, compliance requirements, integration expenses, and stablecoin-management fees as factors that can offset the benefits of faster clearing.
Benkitis acknowledged a structural constraint in emerging markets: local currency liquidity. “The stablecoin gets the value there quickly. You still need the local liquidity to finish the payment,” Benkitis said. Stablecoins can move value rapidly across borders, but converting to local currency to complete a transaction remains necessary where local liquidity is scarce.
For businesses, the operational reality may differ from the technical mechanism. “If stablecoins become a major part of payments, most businesses probably won’t care that there is a stablecoin somewhere in the process. They’ll care that settlement is available when they need it and that the money arrives,” Benkitis said.
Continuous settlement on blockchain infrastructure could reduce the capital that financial firms must maintain in different locations to facilitate payments, particularly across borders. The shift represents a gradual integration of stablecoin infrastructure into existing payment networks rather than a replacement of those networks.
