Report: Mastercard and Visa Suspend their Crypto Initiatives
- Both Visa and Mastercard have struck different partnerships with crypto companies.
- Binance recently partnered with Mastercard to provide prepaid crypto-fiat cards in Brazil.
- Visa terminated its credit card partnership with FTX in November.
American payment processors Visa and Mastercard have postponed the launch of new collaborations with crypto companies. The decision was reportedly due to the recent failures of high-profile crypto firms, which have intensified regulatory attention. Both Visa and Mastercard have been heavily involved in the crypto space. Mastercard recently announced plans to explore payments in USDC.
Reacting to the situation, a Visa spokesperson reportedly said that “recent high-profile failures in the crypto sector are an important reminder that we have a long way to go before crypto becomes a part of mainstream payments and financial services.” However, the decision to halt recent projects does not alter Visa’s long-term plan for cryptocurrencies.
According to Reuters, a Mastercard spokesperson said,
Our efforts continue to focus on the underlying blockchain technology and how that can be applied to help address current pain points and build more efficient systems.
Cuy Sheffield, head of product at Visa, later shared a tweet branding the Reuters report as “inaccurate.” Sheffield noted that Visa plans to “continue to partner with crypto companies to improve fiat on and off ramps as well as progress on our product roadmap to build new products that can facilitate stablecoin payments in a secure, compliant, and convenient way.”
Major card companies had begun to embrace cryptocurrency over the past few years as the popularity of digital assets skyrocketed, and some predicted it would be the next big thing in finance. These payment companies receive a small cut of the dollar value of the transactions they handle. Some of the payment providers have already launched blockchain-focused teams and struck multiple partnerships with crypto firms.
Crypto exchange Binance has already collaborated with Visa and Mastercard to create payment cards in different regions. Binance recently partnered with Mastercard to provide prepaid crypto-fiat debit cards to Brazilian users who complete the required KYC process.
Meanwhile, Visa terminated its global credit card partnership with FTX in November. The exchange, which was one of the leading crypto platforms, filed for bankruptcy last year.
Lawrence has covered some exciting stories in his career as a journalist, he finds blockchain-related stories very intriguing. He believes Web3 will change the world and wants everyone to be a part of it.
