Card giant Mastercard will enable customers in the Asia-Pacific region to convert cryptocurrencies into fiat payments. A similar step is apparently imminent for the USA.
Mastercard is advancing its crypto adaptation more and more ambitiously. As a Communication from the company reveals, the credit card provider entered into partnerships with digital asset service providers Amber Group, Bitkub and CoinJar. Together, they will enable consumers and businesses across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region to obtain credit, debit and prepaid cards with Mastercard cryptocurrencies. Cardholders can now convert their crypto currencies into a traditional fiat currency and then spend them at all Mastercard acceptance points.
With this announcement, Mastercard is choosing a time when interest in cryptocurrencies has reached an all-time high across the Asia-Pacific region. According to the youngest Mastercard New Payments Index 45 percent of respondents in the APAC region said they are likely to consider using cryptocurrencies in the next year. If the survey participants followed their words with deeds, this would be a significant increase compared to the actual number of users (12 percent) last year. In addition, this value would be above the global average of 40 percent.
Mastercard did not specify which cryptocurrencies exactly supported this project. The company named Bitcoin and Ether as two payment options that some isolated merchants accept, but without meeting with wider acceptance.
In collaboration with these partners, who follow the same basic principles as Mastercard – that every digital currency must offer stability, regulatory compliance and consumer protection – Mastercard is expanding the possibilities of cryptocurrencies to give people even more choice and flexibility in how they pay.
said Rama Sridhar, Executive Vice President, Digital Partnerships in the APAC region at Mastercard.
Mastercard is already cooperating with Bakkt for the USA
The news about the issuance of crypto credit cards immediately sparked a response on social media, especially on Twitter. There, several influencers immediately praised the growing attractiveness of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for the mainstream. Cryptocurrencies are undoubtedly gaining an increasingly stronger status as an asset class. This is underscored not least by the recently achieved milestone of 3 trillion US dollars. Nevertheless, acceptance in the payment sector is still lagging significantly behind this development.
But apparently Mastercard is keen to put an end to this. At the end of October, the company announced that it was working with the digital wealth platform Bakkt. Dealers and banks in the USA should have the opportunity to include crypto currencies in their offerings. The company can therefore be said to have played a pioneering role in the acceptance of digital assets as a means of payment.