Key takeaways:
- Payment industry giant Mastercard is expanding its consulting service with 500 specialists to help drive the adoption of crypto
- The payments firm will help traditional financial institutions design digital currency products and strategies, including crypto cards and loyalty schemes
- Mastercard first announced it is onboarding crypto assets onto its platform last February and has since deepened its commitment to the blockchain industry
Mastercard to help commercial banks navigate crypto adoption, advise central banks on CBDCs
Global payment processing company Mastercard has announced it is expanding its consulting service to help banking institutions in their adoption of digital currencies, open banking, and environmentally friendly practices.
According to yesterday’s press release, Mastercard is planning to use its crypto expertise to help traditional financial institutions in their journey towards implementing digital assets, including digital currencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), into their existing portfolio of financial products and services.
“Early-stage education, risk assessments, and bank-wide crypto and NFT strategy development to crypto cards and the design of crypto loyalty programs,” are the central area of focus of Mastercard’s newly expanded consulting department, according to Tuesday’s statement.
Additionally, Mastercard is planning to offer its consulting service to central banks that are exploring central bank digital currency (CBDC) and provide a testing environment where various use-cases and technical designs of fiat-based digital currencies can be experimented with.
As a part of its expansion efforts, Mastercard will be hiring 500 financial and crypto employees to increase its 2000 strong team of data analysts, engineers, and advisors.
Mastercard is betting on the long-term success of crypto
Mastercard has been deepening its ties to crypto over the past year, forming new alliances with crypto-focused businesses and with strategic acquisitions of several crypto firms. “Digital assets are becoming a more important part of the payments world,” wrote Mastercard in February, when it announced it is bringing crypto onto its network.
Later last year, in September, Mastercard bought CypherTrace, a cryptocurrency intelligence startup specialized in fraud protection and anti-money laundering solutions. At the turn of 2022, the global payment processor announced it is partnering with Coinbase to make the NFT purchase experience more accessible and less complex.
