It's not a secret for anyone that banks are very negative about cryptocurrencies, and this fact is considered quite reasonable. The economy of the cryptocurrency is a direct threat to the current financial system, which is represented by banks and other centralized financial institutions. Therefore, when the Executive Director of MasterCard announced that they are ready to start working with cryptocurrencies, many people were very surprised. However, there are some limitations to consider.
Despite the fact that MasterCard is not a fan of cryptocurrency, the company still pays a lot of time and effort to implement the technology of blockchain. This became apparent after MasterCard and Visa classified the purchase of cryptocurrency as a cash advance.
“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.”
It seems that the financial giant wants to show that its attitude to the cryptocurrencies has changed, although in reality this is far from the case. In an interview for the Financial Times, MasterCard CEO Ari Sarker said the company would be pleased to consider using cryptocurrency, but not before virtual currencies are issued by central banks.
“If governments look to create national digital currency we’d be very happy to look at those in a more favorable way [compared with existing cryptocurrencies],” Sarkar told Financial Times.
“So long as it’s backed by a regulator and […] it is not anonymous, it is meeting all the regulatory requirements,” Sarkar continued, “I think that would be of greater interest for us to explore.”
At the moment, the company is conducting an experimental program in Japan and Singapore. Customers can cash out Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from their cards. However, this program is not intended for cryptocurrency trading. In addition, the program has strict rules and control measures, such as KYC and anti-money laundering.