Mastercard To Help Banks Offer Crypto Trading Services
- Mastercard, the second-largest payment-processing corporation worldwide, announced a new program on Monday that would enable banks to provide crypto trading services to their clients.
- The company will handle the two crucial areas – regulations and security, making it relatively easier for banks to engage in crypto activities.
- There is an overwhelming majority of clients who want to enter the crypto industry but given the volatility of digital assets, they want to test the water first.
A severe downtrend in the prices of cryptocurrencies has been of grave concern for many corporate entities who have hesitated before investing in and entering the blockchain and crypto industry. However, Mastercard, the second-largest payment-processing corporation worldwide, has decided to double down on its crypto ventures and, as a result, announced a new program on Monday that would enable banks to provide crypto trading services to their clients.
This could prove to be a major push that the crypto and blockchain industry needs in the current bearish scenario wherein the prices of major altcoins are down in the range 60-70% from their all-time highs. According to a report from CNBC, the payment network provided by Mastercard will act as a bridge between Paxos, a leading blockchain payment services firm which is already used by payment giant PayPal, and the banks that will opt for the new service.
A major part of the new deal that might attract banks to offer crypto trading services is the fact that the payments giant will handle the regulatory compliance and security. Regulatory crackdown in the crypto sector and security issues are two of the biggest concerns of banks that seek to put their money and efforts in the crypto trading sectors. Therefore, if Mastercard will handle the two crucial areas, it might become relatively easier for banks to engage in crypto activities.
“There’s a lot of consumers out there that are really interested in this, and intrigued by crypto, but would feel a lot more confident if those services were offered by their financial institutions. It’s a little scary to some people still,”
says Jorn Lambert, Mastercard’s chief digital officer.
In a poll conducted by Mastercard, Lambert added that there is an overwhelming majority of clients who want to enter the crypto industry but since Bitcoin and Ether, the top two cryptocurrencies in the sector, are known for their extremely volatile behavior, they would rather test the waters with the help of banks than jump head-first into the industry. This is a reason why the new program brought forth by the payments network might prove very crucial in the longer run for the crypto industry.
“It would be shortsighted to think that a little bit of a crypto winter heralds the end of it — we don’t see that. As regulation comes in, there is going to be a higher degree of security available to the crypto platforms and we’ll see a lot of the current issues getting resolved in the quarters in the years to come,”
said Lambert.
This is not the payment company’s first venture into the blockchain industry and recently, it partnered with the world’s biggest crypto exchange Binance to launch prepaid cards for locals in Argentina.
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
