Mastercard Wants to Make Crypto as ‘Everyday Way to Pay’

Financial payment service provider Mastercard has considered five ways to achieve crypto payment in everyday life. As a way of placing digital assets into an everyday way to pay for both products and services, Mastercard contemplates cryptocurrency, the metaverse, and Non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Mastercard claims that digital assets like cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies (CBDC) are potential transformers of the financial system’s infrastructure. The payment giant also sees NFTs, blockchain gaming, and metaverse experience as a means to improve customers’ communication and shopping methods.

In effect, there is a recognized need to spice up the payment ecosystem through the introduction of variety, bringing onboard experts in the fields of technology, financial technology, banking, and the crypto industry. Together, they can usher in an era of new payment services that will make financial transactions simple, fast, and cheap.

Also, this collaborative effort with experts will help improve the safety of crypto users in terms of cyber threats, equip them in preparation for unforeseen harsh market conditions as well as improve crypto mainstream adoption. 

Mastercard Focus on Crypto, Metaverse, and NFTs

According to Mastercard Executive Vice President of Digital Assets and Blockchain Products and Partnerships Raj Dhamodharan, the first consideration is on crypto cards. He is confident that this will serve as a bridge between traditional financial services and the crypto industry. Already, there have been quite a number of crypto card introductions in different regions, including a prepaid card launch with Binance in Argentina.

Secondly, he talked about services for crypto which Mastercard is currently involved in as it serves as support to crypto players, providing them with cybersecurity, digital ID, advisory, and open banking services through financial institutions.

The purchase of CipherTrace which monitors fraudulent behavior of crypto transactions and the recent launch of a crypto fraud detection tool dubbed Crypto Secure is the firm’s strategy to protect its users.

Next, Mastercard has partnered with several firms like Paxos, Circle, Evolve and Uphold to ease the conversion of crypto to fiat currency in order to make payments. Additionally, the payment giant plans to introduce ‘certain Mastercard-approved digital assets’ into the Mastercard network to make for consumer protections, strict regulatory compliance, and stability.

Finally, Dhamodharan considered Mastercard growing partnerships with firms to suppose metaverse and NFTs. Earlier this year, Mastercard announced a partnership deal with Coinbase to offer NFT payments. It still plans to introduce this same service to eight more NFT marketplaces.