Mastercard Teams Up With Paxos To Launch Crypto Trading For Banks

Mastercard Inc MA on Monday announced a program to enable financial institutions to bring secure crypto trading capabilities and services to their customers, in partnership with blockchain infrastructure platform Paxos.

Per the agreement, on behalf of the banks, Paxos will offer crypto-asset trading and custody services, while Mastercard will use its technology to integrate those capabilities into the bank interfaces, giving customers a "seamless" experience.

Mastercard's financial institution partners will have access to a full range of purchase, hold, and sell services for a selection of crypto assets, as well as proven identity, cyber, security, and consulting services, through partnerships with regulated and licensed crypto custody providers.

Program aimed at helping customers with complex regulations

The program seeks to enhance the ecosystem's security and assist card issuers in adhering to complex regulations.

“Our commitment is simple – to explore crypto and the underlying digital assets technology to support consumer choice in payments. Today is an exciting step in our crypto journey that draws on the strengths of our global businesses, from open banking and identity verification to analytics and fraud monitoring to settlement solutions,” said Jorn Lambert, Chief Digital Officer at Mastercard.

He added that crypto product innovations will provide choice at scale and continue to bring one-of-a-kind opportunities to financial institutions as they seek to offer new, advanced services to their customers.

According to the 2022 Mastercard New Payments Index, 29% of respondents globally own cryptocurrencies as investments, with another 65% saying they desire their existing trusted financial institution to offer cryptocurrency-related services.

Visa and Mastercard engaged in a crypto partnership frenzy

For NFTs and Bakkt, Mastercard has already partnered with Coinbase, enabling banks and merchants in its network to provide services linked to cryptocurrencies.

To provide cryptocurrency debit cards in 40 countries as of last week, Visa teamed up with FTX.

Visa currently has more than 70 crypto partnerships.

American Express Company AXP has stated that it is investigating the use of stablecoins, which are backed by the value of a dollar or another fiat currency, with its cards and network.

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