Security and regulatory compliance are the two major reasons banks avoid cryptocurrency; now, MasterCard is taking up that responsibility and bridging the gap between banking and cryptocurrency.
On October 17, Mastercard introduced a program called “Crypto Source” to enable financial institutions to provide safe crypto trading capabilities and services to their customers.
The payment giant’s new program will connect crypto trading with banks in partnership with Paxos, a regulated and licensed crypto trading platform.
Paxos, which already offers similar services to PayPal, will manage trading and custody, while MasterCard will manage regulatory compliance and security, like verifying transactions, preventing money laundering, and monitoring identities. Thus users can hold, buy and sell cryptocurrencies supported by Mastercard’s secure solution.
According to Mastercard’s chief digital officer, Jorn Lambert, ” a lot of consumers out there are really interested in this, and intrigued by crypto, but would feel a lot more confident if those services were offered by their financial institutions.”
Ajay Bhalla, President, Cyber & Intelligence at Mastercard, added, “Our recent investments in this space, such as the acquisition of CipherTrace and Ekata, are providing us with a unique set of capabilities to help provide our customers and consumers with the most technically advanced solutions available in the market.”
Although the program is expected to launch in the 4th quarter of 2022, Mastercard’s collection of crypto-related services for banks and fintech companies will involve partnership and technology support, security management, crypto spending, cash out, lastly, crypto program management.
Surprisingly, Mastercard’s move came a week after Visa, its competitor, revealed a “long-term partnership” with the FTX exchange and extended its crypto debit cards to South America, Europe, and Asia.
The partnership will look to solidify and secure more trust in the legitimacy of crypto products by having a well-known financial name throw its proficiency in tech support to improve crypto analytics, transaction monitoring, and more.
It will also look to drive more adoption through newly exposed use cases made available via new and diverse product lines like crypto cards and cross-border services.The possibilities are endless and will mark the beginning of more innovation in building more accessible channels that take crypto and web3 to the last mile.
What do you think about the direction the partnership is going to take last mile adoption of crypto?
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