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Mastercard has also been making headlines in relation to the crypto space. It’s been reported that the chief executive just addressed the company’s ambitions in CBDCs.
It’s also worth noting the fact that the firm has long been clear about the interest in serving as a private-sector partner for CBDCs. Mastercard revealed a testing environment platform for central banks in 2020.
Beyond the realm of payments
CEO Michael Miebach commented and added a new degree of specificity and suggested that this work could extend beyond the realm of payments.
“Specifically in CBDCs, I would describe it as relatively early days,” he said while responding to a question about Mastercard’s efforts in this area.
He also made sure to note the fact that “where we see our role to start with is to answer the question as you just asked, in partnership with governments, is what is the right construct.”
Another important thing to note is that he also addressed the CBDC project undertaken in the Bahamas, and Miebach said:
“There’s this last mile issue, but there’s also, then, the questions of what other applications can ride on this infrastructure. As you heard us talking about, in the context of real-time payments, our go-to-market is always underlying infrastructure, application services. And we intend to do the same thing here. And that is, what is an application that could ride on top of this? It could be a smart trade contract.”
Mastercard teamed up with Gemini exchange
Not too long ago, Reuters noted that Mastercard Inc and U.S. crypto exchange Gemini would launch the first credit card that gives users digital currency “rewards” on purchases this year – this only deepens the involvement of major payment companies in the emerging asset class.
It’s been also revealed that users of the card will from this summer receive up to 3% in bitcoin or other cryptos on their purchases, the companies said in a statement.