Rayls Joins the Mastercard Crypto Partner Program

Building the Next Era of Institutional Payments

We are proud to announce that Rayls has been accepted into the Mastercard Crypto Partner Program as a Blockchain Network partner, one of five distinct tracks in a program designed to foster co-innovation between crypto-native builders, Mastercard, and the global financial system.

Innovation alone doesn't create scale. This is more than a badge; it's a working relationship that reflects a shared conviction: digital assets can only reach their full potential when on-chain innovation connects to the trusted infrastructure that powers real-world payments. Together with Mastercard, we are building a compliant, privacy-preserving, and interoperable digital asset settlement network that can operate at a global scale.

Why This Partnership Matters

For financial assets to move on-chain at scale, they need more than technology - they need trust infrastructure, regulatory alignment, and global reach. That's exactly what the Mastercard Crypto Partner Program is designed to provide: a bridge between crypto-native innovation and the world's most established payment network.

Rayls was built precisely for this moment. As the first EVM-compatible blockchain that simultaneously delivers privacy, scalability, interoperability, and decentralization, Rayls is uniquely positioned to serve as the settlement layer for financial institutions operating within Mastercard's ecosystem.

As a Blockchain Network partner, Rayls gains direct access to Mastercard's on-chain services - including settlement and Crypto Credential infrastructure - as well as the opportunity to explore several use cases integrating to Mastercard Multi token Network global, creating a seamless interoperability between TradFi and DeFi.

The Use Cases We Are Exploring

Our collaboration with Mastercard centers will be to explore three concrete use cases, all powered by Rayls as the underlying settlement infrastructure, supporting both stablecoins and tokenized deposits - connected to Mastercard's global payment network and Crypto Credential framework.

Use Case 1 - Merchant Settlement in Any Digital Asset

Rayls enables acquirers to offer merchants the ability to receive and settle payments in digital assets - whether stablecoins or tokenized deposits - through the Mastercard network. Merchants benefit from instant, programmable settlement that eliminates the delays and counterparty risks of traditional clearing, with instant conversion between fiat and digital assets available at every step. Acquirers gain a new, cost-efficient settlement rail that is fully auditable and compliant. This effectively brings digital asset settlement into everyday commerce, making on-chain payments a practical reality for any merchant operating within the Mastercard ecosystem and opening digital asset liquidity to everyday merchant operations.

Use Case 2 - Compliant Cross-Border Payments

Rayls powers seamless cross-border payments by allowing financial institutions to originate transactions using tokenized deposits, which are then converted into stablecoins at the point of transfer and routed through Mastercard's global network to the destination institution. This eliminates the need for pre-funded nostro accounts, dramatically reduces FX friction, and compresses settlement times from days to seconds. Mastercard Crypto Credentials ensure that every step of the flow is KYC/AML verified - making this a fully compliant solution for international value transfer between regulated financial institutions. Private token interoperability extends the reach of this infrastructure further, connecting to external networks including DREX, Núclea, and public blockchains, and delivering both privacy and scalability across the full Mastercard ecosystem.

Use Case 3 - Tokenized Deposits and RWA Yield-Bearing Vaults

Rayls provides the private subnet infrastructure for financialinstitutions to issue and manage tokenized deposits - onchain representations of bank liabilities that serve as the settlement asset across all payment flows. Tokenized deposits keep banks at the center of the monetary system while unlocking programmability, real-time settlement (T+0, 24/7/365), and interoperability with stablecoins both on private and public blockchain networks. Beyond payments, this same infrastructure supports the issuance of tokenized RWA yield-bearing vaults — all within a permissioned environment that maintains full KYC/AML/CFT compliance, supports the two-tier banking model that regulators globally are converging around, and leverages Rayls' enterprise-grade privacy ledgers, encrypted subnet bridging, and liquidity optimization capabilities.

What Makes Rayls the Right Infrastructure

Not all blockchain networks are built for financial institutions. Raylswas designed from the ground up with the constraints and requirements of regulated finance in mind:

• Privacy by architecture: Transactions within private subnets are shielded from other participants without compromising auditability for regulators.
• EVM compatibility: Full access to the Ethereum developer ecosystem, enabling rapid deployment of smart contracts and DeFi primitives within a compliant wrapper.
• Interoperability: Rayls bridges seamlessly to public blockchains (Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche) and to permissioned networks like DREX, a critical capability as financial infrastructure becomes multi-chain.
• Regulatory alignment: ISO 20022 compliance, KYC/AML/CFT support, and governance frameworks that meet the standards of central banks and financial regulators.
• Real-time, risk-free settlement: No counterparty risk, no settlement delay, and no locked liquidity.

What Comes Next

The Mastercard Crypto Partner Program is the formal framework thataccelerates what Parfin and Mastercard have already been working on together since Parfin joined the Mastercard Start Path program. It provides access to Mastercard's global network, streamlined commercial frameworks, and the opportunity to co-create new capabilities alongside one of the world's most trusted financial brands.

For Rayls, this is a signal to the market: institutional blockchain infrastructure has arrived, and it is being built through partnerships that combine technological innovation with global trust and regulatory credibility.

We are just getting started.

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