Mastercard Inc. said on Wednesday that traders will be able to accept some cryptocurrencies on their network later this year, which will be the latest embrace of digital coins by a traditional payment player.
“We are here to enable customers, merchants and businesses to shift digital value – traditionally or crypto – as they wish,” Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president of digital assets, said in a blog post.
Mastercard MA,
already works with some crypto platforms that issue Mastercard cards, which allow people to spend their crypto assets, but through the arrangements the cryptocurrencies do not flow through Mastercard’s network, as the crypto partners convert the digital currencies into traditional currencies and then transfer them to Mastercard. By moving to directly support some crypto assets, Mastercard will ‘cut out inefficiencies so that consumers as well as merchants avoid having to switch back and forth between crypto and traditional to make purchases,’ Dhamodharan said.
Mastercard intends to be selective about which cryptocurrencies it allows when embarking on its plan. The company will be looking for cryptocurrencies that respect the privacy of consumer information, follow compliance procedures and “provide the stability that people need in a vehicle to spend, not to invest.”
Traditional financial technology companies are increasingly experimenting with new digital assets. Mastercard, at first, has already announced that it is in talks with central banks about the possibility of ‘digital central bank currencies’, which would serve as alternative ways to pay more than one fiat currency.
Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach said in the company’s latest earnings call that the emphasis on Mastercard on consumer protection and transparency, as well as the acceptance network, could be useful for central banks when they think about this future of money.
Al Kelly, CEO of Visa Inc., said on Visa’s V:
most recent earnings call that the company is also making arrangements with platforms and digital wallets issuing Visa cards so customers can spend their crypto possession. “These exchange ratios represent the potential for more than 50 million Visa references,” he said.
Kelly also spoke at length about the prospects for cryptocurrency on Visa’s platform. “It goes without saying that, to the extent that a particular digital currency becomes a recognized exchange, there is no reason why we cannot add it to our network, which today supports more than 160 currencies,” he said.
PayPal Holdings Inc. PYPL,
launched US users late last year to sell and sell cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin via its platform, and the company plans to enable consumers to use their cryptocurrencies as financing tools when they are as fast as this quarter shop at PayPal merchants. Square Inc. SQ,
CEO Jack Dorsey is a big proponent of bitcoin, and he had users of Square’s Cash App buy and sell the cryptocurrency more than three years ago.