Mastercard will introduce cryptocurrency trading through banks
Mastercard’s newest program will allow consumers to trade crypto conveniently from their bank of choice.
Credit card giant Mastercard has announced that it will help financial institutions offer cryptocurrency trading to their retail customers.
Mastercard has announced a new program called Crypto Source, which will allow banks to offer crypto trading to their customers.
Today’s announcement says banks will “access a comprehensive suite of buy, hold and sell services for selected cryptoassets” along with other services.
In particular, Mastercard will act as a bridge to the crypto exchange Paxos. Together, the two companies will handle compliance and security issues, meaning that the banks involved in the program will not have to carefully manage these risks.
The decision to offer the service was apparently influenced by Mastercard’s own research, which found that 65% of respondents preferred cryptocurrency services to be provided by a trusted financial institution rather than a crypto company.
Jorn Lambert, Mastercard’s chief digital officer, stated in a CNBC interview that many consumers are “interested in crypto, but would feel much more confident if these services were offered by their financial institutions.”
It is not clear which banks will offer the service, although it seems likely that some major financial institutions will adopt the program given Mastercard’s high profile.
The service is currently in the pilot program stage. Mastercard says further details on availability will be made available at a later date.
Mastercard is already heavily involved in cryptocurrency. In 2021, the firm announced plans to bring support for cryptocurrencies, primarily stablecoins, on its network.
Before that, Mastercard began working with various cryptocurrency exchanges to create crypto payment cards, allowing crypto account holders to convert their exchange balance and use it at the point of sale. Exchanges that offer payment cards include Binance, Gemini, Bitpay and Nexo.
This month, Mastercard also announced an anti-fraud service that will help banks calculate the risk of fraud associated with exchanges using its network. Earlier, in September, Mastercard acquired crypto-security firm CipherTrace.
Mastercard competitor PayPal is also working with crypto. In fact, it appears that Mastercard’s service will be quite similar to that offered by PayPal, which began offering crypto trading through a partnership with Paxos in October 2020.
Meanwhile, Visa has recently partnered with JP Morgan on cross-border blockchain payments and has expanded its FTX crypto card to 40 new countries.
Disclaimer: the information herein is provided without regard to your personal circumstances and should therefore not be construed as financial advice, investment recommendation or an offer for, or solicitation of, transactions in cryptocurrencies.
