Mastercard is deepening its push into stablecoin payments with the launch of a new platform that lets businesses embed digital currencies into traditional banking and card services, a move that could make it easier for companies to offer stablecoin payments without building their own infrastructure.

The service, dubbed the Global Money Platform, marks the payments giant's first major integration with BVNK since it acquired the stablecoin infrastructure firm in August, Mastercard announced Thursday in a press release.

According to Mastercard, businesses can use the platform to hold and convert both fiat currencies and stablecoins, offer stablecoin-linked cards, and make payments directly from stablecoin balances into recipients' local bank accounts.

The platform connects to Mastercard Move, the company's global money transfer network, which can route payments to more than 17 billion destinations, including bank accounts and cards. It also links stablecoin balances to Mastercard's merchant network, allowing customers to spend them using payment cards. Fintech firms Nuvei and Marqeta are among the first integration partners, alongside several other companies, and how quickly they bring stablecoin-linked services to market will offer an early test of the platform in real-world use.

The launch extends Mastercard's role beyond processing payments to providing infrastructure that financial companies can use to offer stablecoin services under their own brands. It also puts the company in closer competition with Visa, which launched a platform in July that lets financial institutions hold, mint, and transfer stablecoins. With both card networks now offering stablecoin infrastructure to financial institutions, their rivalry is extending from card payments into the underlying rails for digital currencies.

The rollout comes as research from Standard Chartered points to growing stablecoin transaction activity, even as the circulating supplies of major tokens such as USDt and USDC have remained relatively flat this year. Stablecoins are blockchain-based tokens typically pegged to fiat currencies such as the US dollar, with USDt, issued by Tether, and USDC, issued by Circle, ranking as the two largest by market value.