MasterCard tracks where and how cardholders buy crypto

In Mastercard’s latest step into crypto, the credit card behemoth is leaning on a recently acquired blockchain analytics company to do due diligence on sellers of digital assets.

Mastercard, the company said Tuesday, is leveraging data from CipherTrace, acquired in 2021, to launch a solution that should keep Mastercard in compliance with crypto regulation. It is intended to work by providing actionable information to create risk profiles for more than 2,400 blockchain-based firms in an effort to determine approved purchases.

The initiative, called Crypto Secure, serves as a dashboard designed to track where cardholders purchase crypto products. It also has the ability to identify crypto exchanges, plus measure transaction approvals and declines – as well as provide risk calculations and benchmark ratings for comparison with a group of financial institutions.

Ajay Bhalla, president of Mastercard cyber and intelligence, said in a statement that the launch should add transparency and trust to the growing business of crypto.

“Trust is our business, and with cryptocurrency becoming more intertwined in our everyday lives, this is an exciting next step in our journey,” said Bhalla.

Mastercard has been actively making progress in crypto in recent years.

The payments giant recently partnered with cryptocurrency and fiat exchange hi to launch a credit card that allows users to customize their own NFT avatars.

The company also partnered with crypto exchange Binance to offer a prepaid crypto card in Argentina and Middle Eastern digital asset gateway Fasset to expand its services to Indonesia.

These efforts, along with the expansion in blockchain technology subsidiaries, include the following:

• Finicity, a company that collects financial data
• Ekata, a global customer verification and fraud prevention company
• RiskRecon, a firm that works to investigate the security mechanisms of counterparty providers

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