Regulation lies at the centre of cryptocurrency — — while government of various countries ban ICOs, social and search giant also commenced following the ban the foot. But the leading financial services organisation, Mastercard is supporting cryptocurrencies as long as they are backed by Government
In a meeting with Financial times, Mastercard co-president for the Asia-pacific region, Ari Sarkar discusses about the future of Mastercard about rapport with cryptocurrency.
Sarkar said that the company is ready to deal only with government backed cryptocurrency. He aims to look at national digital currency over existing cryptocurrencies.
“So long as it’s backed by a regulator and […] it is not anonymous, it is meeting all the regulatory requirements. I think that would be of greater interest for us to explore”.
Government issued currencies have been exploring in countries like Russia(add currency name), Canada(add currency name), England, Dubai, India and Estonia. Notably, a successfully issued currency by its government is Venezuela Petro.
Further, the CEO of MasterCard, Ajay Banga has previously said that MasterCard will find its way to be still active. Thus, only for government backed cryptocurrencies. He also called cryptocurrencies without backed by government as “junk”.
“If the government creates digital currency, we will find a way to be in the game. We will provide rails for moving currency from customer to merchant. The government mandated digital currencies are interesting. Non-government mandated currency is junk”.
Sarkar also mentions that at present MasterCard runs a bitcoin pilot program in Singapore and Japan that hold users to withdraw cash onto MasterCard. Besides, that program involves both AML and KYC components:
“We are not operating trading of bitcoin through the MasterCard network […] [The pilot] is a toe in the water, we’re fully cognizant of the reputational risk”.
The Financial times report said that Visa and MasterCard has reclassified Bitcoin purchases as “cash transactions”. It also had added fees for their crypto customers.
However, a spokesperson of MasterCard cities that MasterCard Labs has filed around 30 patents concerning to virtual currency and blockchain tech.
“MasterCard Labs is working on a Blockchain technology that will support a wide range of use cases, including but not exclusive to [business to business] interbank payments, tracking trade finance obligations along the value chain, exchanging know your customer and anti-money laundering data between trusted parties, and more”.
Although, there isn’t a halt by MasterCard’s working with blockchain and digital currencies on their own.
Recently, the banks that restricted crypto purchase via credit cards includes, Bank of America and JP Morgan, Citigroup, Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays.
