Mastercard Send, Visa Now Powering Stripe Instant Payout

Mastercard Send will now be the payment rails behind Stripe’s instant payout feature along with Visa, it was announced today by the parties involved. This function allows Stripe sellers—such as Lyft drivers—to receive payments, well, instantly.

“These marketplaces [in the sharing economy] that have popped up aren’t going away, and we think it’s a very important part of the economy,” says senior vice president of digital payments for Mastercard Sherri Haymond. “We think it’s great that it’s possible for people to make a living either full or part-time with these jobs, and We’re making sure they can be paid conveniently and securely.”

Not to mention quickly. Delivery people, for example, will be able to use Stripe’s instant payouts to receive their money in seconds (and if not seconds, then definitely less than 30 minutes) as opposed to waiting for a traditional pay cycle. This is a great benefit especially for the sharing economy, as it provides sellers in with quicker access to their payments.

Stripe’s instant payouts feature is available to any U.S.-based seller that’s running on Stripe Connect—including sites like Care.com (which matches families with nannies and other caregivers) and Lyft’s Express Pay, which is powered by Stripe’s feature.

“Previously what we offered was weekly payouts; it was a weekly cycle and an ACH transfer, so it took a few days,” says Stripe card infrastructure lead Lachy Groom. “Now it’s shifted from weekly to being on-demand; you have complete flexibility. You could be a Lyft driver driving around at 3am and get paid out immediately.”

Lyft Express Pay, which is powered by Stripe’s instant payouts feature (which now has the full force of the Mastercard Send and Visa networks behind it), has been available to drivers since last year and since its launch, more than 50% of Lyft driver payouts are now happening through the service.

Plus, as Groom points out, there are dozens of marketplaces powered by Stripe that can take advantage of the updated speed and visibility of the payment network, even if they may not know it—1 in 3 Americans have paid with Stripe, without realizing it, and now it’s possible for even more people to do so as companies who might not have the resources to partner with Mastercard or Visa’s networks can just integrate with Stripe.

“This makes it available to anyone, instantly,” says Groom. “We love partnering with Mastercard and Visa on this. We looked through a number of different options [for faster payments] and ultimately settled on the credit networks for their speed and visibility.”

Mastercard Send also powers realtime payments for Uber drivers via GoBank for Uber, according to Mastercard. Faster payments are coming along faster than expected. Later this week ACH will switch from once-daily batches to two daily settlements, meaning payments sent in the morning may settle by evening, rather than arriving the next business day (or later.)

To learn more about online payments, join us at Bank Innovation Israel this November 1-3 in Tel Aviv. Learn more and register here.