MasterCard Announces Crypto Support Coming This Year

In a recent blog post, Mastercard announced that they would begin supporting various cryptocurrencies later this year.

Stablecoins To Be Prioritised

Although MasterCard has not yet confirmed which cryptocurrencies will be supported natively, they have stated that they will most likely be offering more support for stablecoins.

This is due to the fact that as a credit card company, they want to offer as much stability as possible to clients.

However, the company has stated that they would not be hosting stashes of cryptocurrency directly – instead, they’ve created partnerships with companies such as Wirex, BitPay, and LVL who will convert fiat to crypto and vice versa – and only then will the “crypto” enter the Mastercard network.

Mastercard went on to say that their entire philosophy revolves around offering customers as much freedom of choice as possible – and given the widespread interest in cryptocurrency that shows no sign of stopping, adding support for cryptocurrencies was the logical choice.

“Our philosophy on cryptocurrencies is straightforward: It’s about choice. Mastercard isn’t here to recommend you start using cryptocurrencies. But we are here to enable customers, merchants, and businesses to move digital value – traditional or crypto – however, they want. It should be your choice, it’s your money. Doing this work will create a lot more possibilities for shoppers and merchants, allowing them to transact in an entirely new form of payment.”

The credit card company has also stated that they’ve engaged several central banks looking into creating CBDCs – a cryptocurrency that is backed by a central banking system. Examples of countries looking into CBDCs are Australia, China, France, Germany, and the USA. According to the blogpost, MasterCard provided some of these banks with a virtual environment to test these out.

MasterCard isn’t the only company dabbling in cryptocurrency, however; Visa has also been expanding its horizons and investing in crypto-affiliated fintech firms.