Mastercard Unveils New Project to Allow Banks “Crypto Trading Capabilities”

On Monday, Mastercard unveiled a brand-new initiative dubbed Crypto Source that will reportedly give banks “crypto trading capabilities.”

According to the release, Crypto Source would “enable financial institutions to bring secure crypto trading capabilities and services to their customers” through partnerships with regulated and authorized crypto custody providers.

The financial institution partners of Mastercard will have access to a full range of purchase, custody, and sell services for several digital currencies, along with advisory, cyber, security, and proven identity services. The behemoth payments company emphasized: “This Crypto Source offering is complemented by Mastercard Crypto Secure to bring additional security to the crypto ecosystem,” adding that Crypto Source is already being prepped for pilot programs.

Mastercard went on to say that it is “expanding its partnership and work with Paxos Trust Company, a leading regulated blockchain infrastructure platform,” to support this program, adding:

“The partnership aims for Paxos to provide crypto-asset trading and custody services on behalf of the banks, while Mastercard will leverage its technology to integrate those capabilities into banks’ interfaces.”

Mastercard Executive Believes Crypto is on the Verge of Going Mainstream

“Our 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,” said Jorn Lambert, the chief digital officer at Mastercard. He stated:

“Our commitment is simple – to explore crypto and the underlying digital assets technology to support consumer choice in payments.”

Speaking on the launch of Mastercard’s new project, Lambert noted in a CNBC interview: “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.” The Mastercard executive added that cryptocurrency is on the “cusp of really going mainstream.”

Recently, Mastercard highlighted five major areas on which it is concentrating to make cryptocurrencies “an everyday way to pay.”