Mastercard Outlines Five Areas to Turn Crypto into ‘Everyday Payment’

Mastercard Outlines Five Areas to Turn Crypto into ‘Everyday Payment’

Mastercard has outlined five key crypto areas to "turn cryptocurrencies into an everyday way to pay." A Mastercard top executive said, "Someday soon, the ability to own and spend a digital currency could be as seamless as making a contactless card payment."

Mastercard to Focus on Five Areas Covering Crypto, Metaverse, and NFTs

Mastercard highlighted on Wednesday five different areas it is working on to "turn cryptocurrencies into an everyday way to pay."

Raj Dhamodharan, Executive Vice President of Digital Asset and Blockchain Products & Digital Partnerships at Mastercard, explained "Digital assets like cryptocurrencies and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) have the potential to transform the financial system’s infrastructure." He added that non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain gaming, and metaverse experiences "could change how consumers shop and communicate."

The top executive opined:

"Someday soon, the ability to own and spend a digital currency could be as seamless as making a contactless card payment."

Dhamodharan outlined five key areas that Mastercard is working on to make it possible. The first area is crypto cards, which Mastercard has already announced globally this year. The payments giant has worked with Gemini on a credit card that pays rewards in cryptocurrencies in the US. The company launched a prepaid card with Binance in Argentina. Mastercard has recently announced the world's first debit card that can be customized to include a customer’s NFT avatar in Europe.

The second area is crypto services. Noting that "Mastercard is a provider of cybersecurity, digital ID, advisory, and open banking services to tens of thousands of financial institutions," Dhamodharan said the company is going to use the same tools "to provide more support to crypto players and issuers."

Mastercard has expanded its consulting work to include a dedicated crypto practice, and it completed the purchase of Ciphertrace last year. The company will soon launch a new crypto monitoring product called Crypto Secure.

The third area is payments. "We’ve partnered with a handful of top-tier crypto-focused companies, including Paxos, Circle, Evolve, and Uphold, to develop tools for consumers to quickly convert their crypto to fiat for making payments. This work will support current and future crypto card partnerships," the top executive explained.

The fourth area focuses on the Mastercard networks crypto, Dhamodharan emphasized:

"An important way to expand choice for people is to bring Mastercard-approved digital assets onto our networks, a plan we announced last year, and which continues to move forward."