MasterCard’s Chief Product Officer Jorn Lambert says Stablecoins are still far from becoming a mainstream payment option. This happens despite all the topics surrounding technology.
In a call with analysts Monday, Lambert said Stablecoins boasts incredible technical potential – fast trading, 24/7, low prices, programmerity, immutableness. However, these features alone do not prepare you for daily payments.
He noted that people also need a frictionless user experience, broad accessibility, and consumer distribution.
The role of MasterCard Eyes as a major infrastructure provider for Stablecoin adoption
MasterCard sees it as a connectivity between the crypto world and traditional finance. Lambert emphasized that MasterCard can provide the type of infrastructure needed to provide the types of Global Acceptance, Security Protocols, and regulatory compliance.
This vision is nothing new. MasterCard and Rival Visa have been exploring Stablecoin initiatives since at least 2021. Recently, MasterCard has partnered with Paxos to support the casting and redemption of USDG Stablecoin. The company also supports Stablecoins like Fiserv’s Fiusd, Paypal’s Pyusd and Circle’s USDC, demonstrating its long-term ambitions to empower the backend of Stablecoin transactions.
Consumer friction and low utility prevent mainstream use
Lambert points out that around 90% of Stablecoin’s use today is still linked to crypto transactions rather than consumer purchases. Companies like Coinbase and Shopify are moving to allow Stablecoin payments for everyday products and services, but there are still major barriers, particularly friction between user recruitment and checkout.
Lambert emphasized that existing Stablecoins do not currently offer attractive use cases for merchant payments from peers. He compared users to prepaid cards, although they can balance some merchants and wallets, but the feature set is limited.
Despite the general narrative, stubcoin can be used to avoid card networks, and transaction fees paid to process transactions, Mastercard and the rest are trying to flip the script, presenting allies that need to help improve the usefulness of stability by integrating them into established payment rails.
Raj Seshadri, Chief Commercial Payments Officer at MasterCard, added that Stablecoins have hidden complexities. “You still need to convert between and between Fiat. It adds costs – not only the price of the stubcoin itself, but also the Forex, regulations, payments, and ramping infrastructure.”
Still others have dissent. Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller recently said that Stubcoin would strengthen the competition in the payments system, which was a positive direction.
Speaking at the event in Dallas Fed, Waller said the rise of stubcoins will make many payments faster and faster. He said, “That’s what I’m aiming for as a free market capitalist economist. I want to compete for payments to reduce costs for families, consumers and businesses. That’s all.”
With Stablecoin regulations gaining traction in the US, banks and institutions are increasingly overwhelming their role in this evolving space. The clarity of the regulations encourages those seeking to provide stubcoin or deposition tokens to retain any deposits that could otherwise flow into digital wallets.
According to Lambert, all financial institutions assess whether they need to issue Stablecoins and what the appropriate product market fit is. For many, the focus is avoiding loss of control over customer deposits.
Beyond the private sector, Lambert noted that governments and central banks are also looking closely at digital currencies, aiming to support innovation while preventing the domestic economy from becoming dollars. “We look forward to the emergence of a wide range of approaches globally,” he said.
The Crypto industry is approaching mainstream adoption as Congress advances the slate of custody bills this week. The legislative push, called “Crypto Week” in the Republican-led House, includes a groundbreaking bill to create a regulatory framework for stubcoin, which could potentially go to President Donald Trump’s desk for approval.
