Mastercard will expand its cryptocurrency payment card programme by pursuing additional collaborations with crypto firms, according to the company’s head of crypto and blockchain, even as regulators and banks become suspicious of the sector.
Mastercard Crypto Payment
In some regions, Mastercard has already worked with cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, Nexo, and Gemini to offer crypto-linked payment cards. Binance cards enable customers to make payments in traditional currencies using bitcoin held on the exchange.
“We have dozens of partners around the world offering crypto card programmes, and they are expanding,” Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s head of crypto and blockchain, told Reuters on Thursday.
“Access to cryptocurrency in a secure manner is also part of our value proposition, and we will continue to do so.”
After a number of significant crypto firms failed last year, including the bankruptcy of major exchange FTX, banks have become wary of crypto clients. Meanwhile, US regulators are increasingly cracking down on what they claim is a lack of market compliance.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Binance in March, accusing the world’s largest crypto exchange of operating a “illegal” exchange and a “sham” compliance programme.
The complaint, according to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, comprised a “incomplete recitation of facts.”
Dhamodharan declined to comment specifically on Binance, but stated that any card programme “goes through full due diligence” and is constantly reviewed.
To safeguard customers from scams and fraud, certain banks, like Santander and NatWest, limit the amount of money UK customers can send to cryptocurrency exchanges.
Rival Visa terminated its global credit card relationships with FTX in November. American Express, which indicated in 2021 that it would examine adopting cryptocurrency to redeem reward points, said in February that it did not envision cryptocurrency replacing its major payment and lending services in the near term.
Asked if Mastercard is considering imposing restrictions on the amount of money that could be transferred to crypto exchanges using its payments network, Dhamodharan said, “We’re not here to pick winners. We’re not here to pick which transaction should happen or shouldn’t happen.”
He said that Mastercard network customers must pass a series of compliance tests, and that the corporation has invested in crypto analytics technologies.
According to Dhamodharan, Mastercard is “really quite enthusiastic” about the underlying blockchain technology that enables cryptocurrencies. “We think more and more regulated money will come to this,” he predicted.
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