MA Expands Tie-Up With Circle to Boost Stablecoin Settlements in EEMEA

Mastercard Incorporated MA recently strengthened its long-standing collaboration with Circle to introduce USDC and EURC settlements for acquirers in the Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) region. Arab Financial Services and Eazy Financial Services will be the first acquirers to benefit from this rollout.

Through this expanded partnership, acquiring institutions will now be able to settle transactions in USDC or EURC—fully reserved stablecoins issued by Circle’s regulated affiliates. These acquirers can then use the stablecoins to pay merchants, paving the way for faster, more reliable and cost-efficient digital trade across emerging markets. 

The recent initiative reinforces Mastercard’s efforts to promote widespread adoption of stablecoins, expand payment capabilities and bolster its presence in the growing crypto ecosystem. Stablecoins are part of this ecosystem. 

In addition to USDC, Mastercard supports regulated stablecoins like USDG, FIUSD and PYUSD, while advancing cross-border remittances, B2B payments and gig worker payouts through Mastercard Move and MTN, all backed by strong security and compliance tools such as Crypto Credential and Crypto Secure.
Also, the move seems to be a time-opportune one with the adoption of stablecoins accelerating across the EEMEA region. 

Therefore, the tie-up with Circle is expected to effectively scale the reach of Mastercard cards powered by stablecoins across EEMEA’s payments landscape. This, in turn, is expected to lead to increased usage of the MA-branded cards and boost the net revenues that it derives from its payment network by charging fees to customers based on the gross dollar volume of the cards. Total net revenues improved 17% year over year in the second quarter of 2025 for the company.

How are Competitors Faring?

Some of Mastercard’s competitors in the crypto space are PayPal Holdings, Inc. PYPL and Visa Inc. V. 

PayPal has expanded into cryptocurrency by allowing users to buy, hold and sell assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash through its digital wallet. It introduced “Checkout with Crypto,” enabling conversion to fiat at millions of merchants, and extended services via Venmo for peer-to-peer trading. Net revenues rose 5% year over year in the second quarter of 2025. 

Visa actively participates in the crypto ecosystem by leveraging its global payments network to connect traditional finance with digital assets. It supports crypto-linked card programs for seamless spending at millions of merchants and partners with exchanges and wallet providers to expand stablecoin and blockchain access. Net revenues advanced 14% year over year in the third quarter of fiscal 2025.

Mastercard’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of Mastercard have gained 25.4% in the past year compared with the industry’s 20.8% growth. 

From a valuation standpoint, MA trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 32.75, above the industry average of 22.24.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Mastercard’s 2025 earnings implies a 11.7% rise from the year-ago period. The consensus mark for revenues indicates 15.1% year-over-year growth. 

MA currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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