Marqeta Brings Stablecoin-Backed Cards to Enterprise Customers on Base

base announced on Oct. 16, 2026 that payments firm marqeta is bringing stablecoin-backed cards to enterprise customers, with settlement taking place on the Base network.

The arrangement links Marqeta's card programs to onchain stablecoin rails: balances held in stablecoins back the card, and settlement clears on Base, the Ethereum Layer-2 incubated by Coinbase. Base framed the announcement around stablecoins' role in sending and spending rather than simply holding.

Marqeta provides card issuing and payments infrastructure that sits behind corporate and consumer card programs. Extending that model to stablecoin-backed cards for enterprise clients moves onchain balances into a spending format that finance teams already understand, while settlement runs on a public network instead of exclusively through traditional card-scheme and banking rails.

A payments push alongside Base's product build-out

The announcement adds a card-issuing partner to a network that has spent October 2026 expanding its financial product surface, including tokenized equities and a stablecoin yield and lending stack introduced on Oct. 13. Base has no native token; transactions on the network are paid in ETH.

Base's post did not say which enterprise customers will be onboarded first, when the cards will go live, which stablecoins will be supported, or how compliance and know-your-customer checks will be handled for cardholders.

What to watch for is whether Marqeta names initial enterprise clients and a launch window, and whether the settlement design covers cross-border spend or is limited to domestic corridors at rollout.