Massive Adoption: Mastercard To Help Banks Offer Crypto Trading Services In Partnership With Paxos

Payment giant Mastercard is joining hands with New York-headquartered blockchain tech firm Paxos to launch a program that will make it easier for traditional financial institutions to offer cryptocurrency trading by providing regulatory compliance and security.

Mastercard’s New Crypto Program For Banks

Mastercard is bringing crypto trading functionalities to banks with Paxos.

According to a Monday announcement, the global payments processing behemoth has launched a program called “Crypto Source” that will act as a bridge between Paxos and banks. Specifically, Paxos will provide crypto trading and custody services, while Mastercard will integrate these services into banks’ interfaces.

Mastercard will also handle regulatory compliance and security, two key obstacles that hinder banks from getting involved with crypto assets. The company’s security management solution enables customers to verify transactions and follow anti-money laundering rules.

“There’s a lot of consumers out there that are interested in this and intrigued by crypto, but would feel a lot more confident if those services were offered by their financial institutions,” Mastercard’s chief digital officer Jorn Lambert told CNBC.

Ajay Bhalla, president of Mastercard’s cyber and intelligence unit, highlighted the payment company’s growing expertise in cryptocurrencies and commitment to the burgeoning market. Bhalla also pointed to Mastercard’s recent investments in crypto, including the acquisition of crypto analytics company CipherTrace in September 2021 and the digital identity verification firm Ekata last April.

Mastercard’s latest crypto venture comes despite a brutal downtrend in coin and token prices across the broader crypto market. Jorn Lambert noted that it would be “shortsighted to think that a little bit of a crypto winter heralds the end of it.”

Traditional Payments Firms Diving Deeper Into Crypto

Mastercard is the second-largest credit card company in the world, behind only Visa. The rival company has also shown tremendous signs of embracing crypto, most recently announcing the launch of a debit card with FTX exchange in over 40 countries across Latin America, Europe, and Asia. This was nine months after introducing the card in the United States of America.

Now that crypto assets are attracting more mainstream attention, it seems that the world’s most trusted financial services companies are intent on moving with the tide.

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