Mastercard introduces pre-settlement screening
Mastercard launched Stablecoin Security, a risk-intelligence product designed to help financial institutions identify fraud, scams, sanctions exposure and other financial-crime risks before stablecoin payments are finalized. The service combines Mastercard’s payment intelligence with blockchain analytics to assess transactions before funds move on-chain.
The company announced the product on October 19, 2026, at the Money20/20 USA conference in Las Vegas. Mastercard said the platform-agnostic service is intended for integration with existing fraud-prevention and compliance systems.
Risk scores precede on-chain movement
The service examines transaction context, the origin of funds, exposure to restricted entities and indicators associated with scams or financial crime. It then generates risk scores that financial institutions can use to decide whether to proceed with a payment or require additional investigation.
Mastercard’s research examined 593 million stablecoin transfer events across 141 million Ethereum transactions in 2025. Nearly 60% of the transfer events involved complex, multi-step activity rather than straightforward transfers between two parties, making it harder to identify the original source of funds or evaluate risks across a payment journey.
Initial partners and rollout
Borderless.xyz and Keyrails are the initial partners for the service, which is launching first in North America. Mastercard expects worldwide commercial availability in 2027.
The product is intended to support banks and payment providers that are exploring stablecoins for cross-border and business payments. Mastercard said risk scoring does not guarantee that every fraudulent transaction will be detected or prevented.
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