Mastercard officially announced on Oct. 17 a new program to enable financial institutions to bring crypto trading capabilities and services to their customers. Called “Crypto Source,” the program is designed to allow users to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies, complemented by Mastercard’s proprietary Crypto Secure solution for additional security and compliance. The tool is launched in cooperation with Mastercard’s existing partner Paxos Trust Company and is reportedly expected to launch in Q4 2022. Paxos is known for providing similar services to global payment giant PayPal, which launched its first crypto services in late 2020. Within the new partnership, Paxos will …

The financial service provider Mastercard will launch a new crypto service related to risk management on Tuesday Oct. 3. Mastercard’s new service, Crypto Secure, is aimed to help banks find and prevent fraud on crypto merchant platforms. Crypto Secure combines the usage of artificial intelligence, blockchain data and public records of crypto transactions, along with other sources, to determine crime-related risks of crypto exchanges within the Mastercard network. Mastercard already has a similar service with fiat currency transactions available to banks. The president of cyber and intelligence business for Mastercard, Ajay Bhalla, said this development helps its partners stay compliant …

Mastercard has launched customizable nonfungible token (NFT) debit cards, allowing some cardholders who own avatars from select NFT collections to add the artwork onto the payment's card. The debit cards are made available through a Sept. 26 partnership with European cryptocurrency exchange platform, “hi” allowing its “Gold” members to personalize their debit cards with an NFT they verifiably own Gold membership with the platform is obtained by staking a minimum of 100,000 hi Dollar’s (HI), the platform's native token, a sum worth around $4,600 according to data from CoinGecko. NEWS! Today @hi_com_official launches the world’s first debit card featuring NFT …

Do you believe that in five years every second transaction in e-commerce will be settled on blockchain? No? Well, that’s what people thought of plastic credit cards versus cash a few decades ago when it came to traditional stores. There is no doubt that Web3 will drastically transform the way e-commerce operates. Using cryptocurrency payments in e-commerce stores will become just as common as accepting PayPal, Klarna, Visa or Mastercard. The stores that don’t adapt their e-commerce platforms to accept cryptocurrencies will soon find themselves out of business. How Web3 has changed the e-commerce landscape Thanks to the converging forces …

Bitcoin (BTC) changed the world as a decentralized and non-governmental form of currency that can facilitate peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions that transcend national borders. But, despite this functionality, Bitcoin’s role as a payment mechanism has been called into question due to its low transaction throughput. The Bitcoin blockchain can handle up to seven transactions per second, which means that network demand has seen the average transaction fee on the network reach an all-time high above $62 during specific periods. In order to address low throughput and high transaction fees, developers made the Lightning Network — a layer-2 scaling solution that allows …

Across the globe, citizens in many countries still face high costs of money transfers both domestically and internationally. That's why digital assets have become the logical solution to answer this challenge — as a decentralized store of value that could enable everyday transactions, regardless of borders. Unfortunately, despite its positioning to level the playing field, many users face high fees when they're trying to use digital assets. Addressing these concerns head-on is Zen.com, a digital money transfer service licensed to operate in the European Union by the Bank of Lithuania. The platform has made it its aim to provide users …

Financial services firm Mastercard has partnered with crypto gateway provider Fasset to co-develop digital solutions that may drive adoption in Indonesia. The collaboration aims to expand financial inclusion in the country and extend opportunities to its local economy. In an announcement, Navin Jain, the country manager for Mastercard Indonesia, said that will support Fasset’s efforts to advance financial inclusion within the country. According to Jain, the partnership will help locals to have more access to digital technologies. Hendra Suryakusuma, an executive at Fasset, told Cointelegraph that there is an unbanked population of 92 million in Indonesia. According to Suryakusuma, this …

Gonzalo Pérez del Arco, director of government affairs in South Europe for card payment giant American Express, believes that making payments with crypto is not currently cost-effective. Pérez’s comments came during an exclusive chat with Cointelegraph editor Aaron Wood at European Blockchain Convention 2022, during which they discussed American Express’ current crypto-related plans and prospects. Pérez explained that several factors make crypto payments nonfeasible in the current market, such as high transaction costs and the willingness of merchants to accept digital payments. However, he noted that crypto payments could become a reality in the future, and American Express is bullish …

The Singapore-based crypto venture firm Three Arrows Capital (3AC) failed to meet its financial obligations on June 15 and this caused severe impairments among centralized lending providers like Babel Finance and staking providers like Celsius. On June 22, Voyager Digital, a New York-based digital assets lending and yield company listed on the Toronto Stock exchange, saw its shares drop nearly 60% after revealing a $655 million exposure to Three Arrows Capital. Voyager offers crypto trading and staking and had about $5.8 billion of assets on its platform in March, according to Bloomberg. Voyager's website mentions that the firm offers a …

International payment processing giant Mastercard is expanding its payment network for nonfungible token (NFT) markets and Web3. The financial service provider announced that it has been working on expanding their payment networks to NFTs over the past year. The firm has partnered with a number of leading NFT marketplaces to allow 2.9 billion cardholders to directly make NFT purchases without buying crypto first. Currently, users need to buy crypto to bid on and buy NFTs. However, with the latest Mastercard partnership, billions of cardholders can now bypass the process of buying a transferring crypto to NFT marketplaces. The firm said: …

On Wednesday, self-custody crypto exchange Edge announced a no-Know Your Customer (KYC) debit Mastercard that can be funded with Bitcoin and other digital currencies. Without KYC verification, users would be able to spend their crypto at more than 10 million merchant terminals in the United States. Currently, one can fund the Edge Mastercard using Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC) and Dash (DASH) directly from the Edge app. In a statement to Cointelegraph, representatives at Edge say that the card is compliant with Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing regulations because of a $1,000 daily spending limit on …

Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach said on Tuesday that he does not expect SWIFT, one of the most widely used platforms for cross-border fiat transactions, to exist in five years' time. Miebach was speaking at a panel session on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as part of the Global Blockchain Business Council’s (GBBC) Blockchain Central Davos conference, which ran adjacent to the World Economic Forum 2022 in Davos, Switzerland. Kicking off GBBC’s #BlockchainCentral Davos session on CBDCs with @eva_szalay @FT @YuvalRooz @digitalassetcom @Jbrookslassiter @Digital_Dollar_ @MiebachMichael @Mastercard @BIS_org @DBTreat @Accenture pic.twitter.com/C2fvgy0Bij — Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) (@GBBCouncil) May 24, 2022 Toward …