Stablecoins are increasingly becoming mainstream as financial institutions start integrating digital resources into existing payment infrastructure.
Mastercard and Yellow Card have teamed up to launch stablecoin payments in Eastern Europe and Africa, with Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa as first markets.
The partnership, announced in May, will focus on various stablecoin use cases like cross-border remittances, B2B settlement, digital loyalty and treasury management. The companies also plan to work with banks, financial institutions and regulators to develop and pilot stablecoin payment solutions.
For Chris Maurice, Yellow Card’s CEO, the combination comes down to local knowledge and regulatory experience.
“Emerging markets represent the greatest opportunity for payment innovation, but success requires deep local expertise and regulatory navigation,” wrote Maurice in an announcement.
The Rulebook Is Becoming Part of the Rails
In Europe, stablecoin activity now falls under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, which places requirements on stablecoin issuers and crypto-asset service providers. Its transition period ended on July 1, 2026, so firms serving EU clients now need the required authorization or must stop providing those services in the region.
Circle France offers a recent example of what this looks like in practice. In April 2026, the firm got approval from the country’s AMF to provide custody and transfer services for USDC and EURC across the European Economic Area, with both stablecoins issued as regulated e-money tokens under MiCA.
Other countries in Africa have their own national regimes, with Ghana and Zambia having VASP licensing regimes, Nigeria regulating digital-asset firms through the SEC, South Africa requiring crypto-asset authorization, and Kenya working on its own virtual-asset regime.
Notably, Yellow Card is a registered VASP in Ghana, operates in Nigeria under the SEC’s Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Program, has a crypto-asset authorization in South Africa, and holds a VASP licence in Zambia.
These authorizations directly affect the way Mastercard-Yellow Card corridors can operate. For example, if you want to send money from euro to naira, you would need a compliant provider on the European side and a properly authorized entity in Nigeria to carry out the stablecoin conversion and payout in naira. A Kenya route would have to meet the country’s own requirements, with the same principle applying across the other markets.
Another thing is that the stablecoin used must also meet the route’s regulatory requirements, with its issuer, status, and the permissions of the firms handling conversion and payout determining whether Mastercard and Yellow Card can use it.
Nigeria Shows Where the Model Is Already Working
Nigeria is already one of the largest stablecoin markets in sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for roughly 60% of the region’s stablecoin inflows from late 2019 to early 2025, according to the International Monetary Fund. The country also has companies building payment products around the same basic structure that Mastercard and Yellow Card are now targeting.
Tranzmit, a U.S.-based payments company, recently integrated Yellow Card’s Payments API in August to support its U.S.-Nigeria corridor.
The same infrastructure could be used on an EU-Africa corridor, with a stablecoin sitting between the euro and an African currency. A euro payment could move from EUR into USDC before being converted into NGN for the recipient. A Europe-Kenya payment would similarly move from EUR into USDC before being converted into KES.
Yellow Card already supports local-currency settlement in markets like Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa through bank transfers and mobile money, depending on the country. In addition, its B2B payment API also enables conversion from local currencies to USDC or USDT. In the EEMEA region, Mastercard is also enabling USDC and EURC settlement for its customers through its partnership with Circle, with Arab Financial Services and Eazy Financial Services being among the first participants.
Together, these examples show how the model is already working in different markets, with stablecoins bridging local currencies and existing payment networks processing the customer-facing transaction.
Leveraging Existing Payment Networks For Stablecoin Rails
McKinsey reported that stablecoin payments totaled some $390 billion in 2025, of which some 60% were B2B payments.
Yet these transactions still represent a fraction of global B2B and consumer payments, leaving a lot of room for adoption as more financial institutions begin supporting them.
Africa already provides some of the strongest evidence of where that adoption can develop. Nigeria’s large stablecoin activity is closely tied to cross-border transactions, while companies such as Tranzmit are building products around stablecoin-enabled settlement. Europe brings a different advantage through its large regulated financial market, where MiCA provides a common framework for stablecoin issuers and crypto-asset service providers.
These markets create a potential foundation for stablecoin payments between Europe and Africa. The scale of the opportunity, however, will depend on whether these transactions become part of normal financial products.
Remittances are one example, but businesses also need to pay suppliers, settle with merchants and move money between countries. These are payments that banks and payment companies already handle, giving Mastercard and Yellow Card a natural starting point for expanding stablecoin use.
The two companies are positioning their partnership around that existing financial system rather than building a separate one. Mastercard brings its established relationships with banks, acquirers and merchants, while Yellow Card brings the local payment infrastructure and regulatory permissions needed to operate across African markets.
With both sides working within the relevant regulatory frameworks, the partnership combines the distribution, infrastructure and compliance needed to expand stablecoin payments across more corridors.
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