zerohash and Marqeta Take Stablecoins Mainstream

Hey Payments Fanatic!

What if every card swipe could be powered by stablecoins?

zerohash and Marqeta think that future is nearer than most people realize.

The two companies have partnered to make it easier for FinTechs to embed stablecoin payments into new and existing products, letting users spend digital dollar balances anywhere traditional card networks are accepted. All while merchants continue getting paid in fiat.

This seems to go beyond just another crypto partnership.

It's a sign that the stablecoin conversation is shifting from cross-border transfers and funding accounts to something much bigger: everyday payments. Consumers don't care about blockchain, but about whether they can tap their card and pay.

If stablecoins can deliver that experience without asking merchants to change how they accept payments, they stop feeling like a niche asset and suddenly start becoming far more relevant.

Now, let's dive into the rest of today's biggest Payments stories 👇

See you tomorrow!

Cheers,

Marcel

INSIGHTS

➡️ Unlimit Executives to discuss the infrastructure behind agentic payments. Unlimit Chief Commercial Officer Wolf Ruzicka and Chief Technology Officer Victor Shilo will explore how probabilistic AI is transforming payment routing, foreign exchange, and fraud prevention, as well as the infrastructure needed to enable agentic payments at scale. Request to join here

NEWS

🇸🇻 Bancoagrícola and Mastercard launched McLaren Formula 1 rewards campaign for Salvadoran cardholders. Running through September 15, the campaign rewards everyday card spending with entries to win a three-day trip to São Paulo, Brazil, while reinforcing Mastercard's strategy of offering exclusive experiences through its global sponsorships.

🇿🇦 eZi Remit collaborates with Mastercard to enhance cross-border payments and drive financial inclusion in South Africa. The collaboration is designed to help simplify global money transfers while advancing financial services, particularly for underserved and underbanked communities, as well as major diaspora groups living in the country.

🇦🇺 OKX launches virtual Mastercard for Australian users. Customers can use the virtual card anywhere Mastercard is accepted. It draws directly from funds held in an OKX Pay wallet, letting users spend the same balance they use for peer-to-peer transfers and USDG rewards.

🌎 Global66 migrated and unified its card operation with Pomelo in Colombia and Chile, enabling faster product launches, card tokenization for Apple Pay and Google Pay, and improved transaction approval and fraud management. The migration supports the continued expansion of Global66's Smart Card across Latin America.

🌎 1inch has integrated Maple Finance's syrupUSDC and syrupUSDT tokens, allowing users to trade tokenized institutional lending positions directly through its dApp and Swap API. The integration expands access to on-chain credit markets while enabling developers and users to swap the assets using 1inch's routing infrastructure across Ethereum, with additional blockchain support.

🌍 Santander will roll out its payments platform Getnet in Europe starting in October. The group, chaired by Ana Botín, will roll out its payments platform in more than 30 European countries where it already holds licenses to focus on large multinationals and e-commerce. 

🚨 Wise just posted $714M in net revenue for Q1 FY27.

Q1 FY27 numbers👇

🌍 Viva.com becomes a new European Payments Initiative member, expanding instant Account-to-Account payments across Europe. The partnership strengthens Viva. com's pan-European payments infrastructure while accelerating Wero's rollout across e-commerce and future in-store payments.

🇺🇸 zerohash and Marqeta announce partnership to enable stablecoin spending across global card networks. The partnership will enable Marqeta customers to embed stablecoin payments directly into new and existing financial products without rebuilding core systems or taking on new regulatory burden.

🇦🇺 Former Rapyd executives raise $8 million Seed with Cordant to solve a hidden problem in global payments. The platform provides end-to-end visibility across payment systems, helping banks and FinTechs manage increasingly complex payment flows, compliance, and operations.

🇺🇸 Apple to launch upgrade device leasing program with Klarna to spur sales. The Apple Upgrade service will work like a subscription, and users can pay off the device early, upgrade early to a new model, or keep it at the end of the leasing period.

🇧🇷 Adyen and TAP modernize payment infrastructure at Brazilian airports with Pix at service counters. The new platform enables passengers to pay with cards, digital wallets, and, for the first time at airport counters, Pix, improving payment flexibility and operational efficiency.

🇧🇷 XP launches payment terminal and card for SMEs and expands its business ecosystem in Brazil. The new products, the XP Empresas Pay payment terminal and the XP Empresas Visa Infinite card, offer a complete financial ecosystem for businesses, integrating investments, current accounts, foreign exchange, payment methods and, in the future, credit.

🇬🇧 Zilch partners with Rezolve AI to grow Intelligent Commerce. The partnership aims to strengthen merchant engagement by embedding AI-driven shopping experiences directly into the payment journey. Keep reading

🌍 UnionPay International signs strategic MoUs with the Central Bank of the UAE, Al Etihad Payments, and the Bank of China Abu Dhabi branch to expand Jaywan card acceptance, develop a national QR payment network, and improve cross-border payment interoperability and local-currency settlement between China and the UAE.

🇺🇸 Stripe signs payments agreement with Ryder Cup, providing payment infrastructure for ticketing, merchandise and on-site purchases. The partnership will support a seamless cashless experience for fans across online and in-person transactions.

🇪🇬 Egypt and Eswatini central banks deepen cooperation on digital payments and banking. During the meeting, the two sides discussed several topics of common interest, including the experience of the Central Bank of Egypt in the money circulation system, the potential of the money printing house as a leading model, and its role in printing money for the benefit of several countries.

🌎 Relay integrates Circle gateway to settle large USDC payments from a single balance across multiple blockchains, reducing idle capital requirements. The integration enables more capital-efficient on-chain payments while simplifying liquidity management as transaction volumes grow.

GOLDEN NUGGET

🚨 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐚 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝟏,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝?👇 Created by Arthur Bedel 💳 ♻️

At low volume everything works. At scale, three things break first:

→ Two concurrent orders hit the same balance. No atomic reservation. Overdraft.

→ Retries without idempotency keys. Duplicate fills. Corrupted ledger.

→ Stop orders inside the active book degrade exactly when markets are most volatile.

DashDevs published a deep technical breakdown of the five service boundaries that survive production load — OMS, matching engine, trigger monitor, ledger and liquidity router — based on their work building Dopay, a crypto-fiat exchange with USDC intermediary routing.

The architecture detail that matters most : single-writer per instrument shard on the matching engine. And double-entry ledger postings settled in the same transaction as execution.

 Full breakdown here

Source: DashDevs, Igor Tomych

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