By forging a partnership with Wirex, Mastercard made a (big) step towards the crypto-currencies.
© Wirex
Last June, the scandal It gave rise to several startups in the world of crypto-currencies in its fall. The next day, some of them have seen their fleet payment card to be completely wiped out after the bankruptcy of their German partner.
Wirex has bounced back in a few hours. Even better, it announces today a collaboration (history) with Mastercard. The young shoot English will now be able to issue Mastercard payment cards, in the same way as it already does with the Visa.
A principal member of Mastercard
With this collaboration, Wirex becomes the ” first platform designed specifically for crypto-currencies “ to obtain the status of a principal member of Mastercard. It will therefore benefit from a privileged access to network services, on the same principle as the fintech, or financial institutions to be more traditional.
Raj Dhamodharan, vice-president in charge of the digital asset and the blockchain at Mastercard, explains : “themarket of the crypto-currency continues to gain in maturity and Mastercard the move, creating experiences reliable and secure for consumers and businesses in the digital economy of today “.
This partnership is highly symbolic, Mastercard made a real step forward in the ecosystem of crypto. The company invites in parallel to the start-ups in the crypto-currency to join their program, Accelerate, which aims to support the startups of the fintech.
With this decision, Mastercard wants to walk in the footsteps of its counterparts Visa and PayPal, who are actively involved in these virtual currency. The three payments specialists, however, have backtracked on Libra, the proposed crypto-currency ambitious (and controversial) of Facebook.
Visa, however, has taken a serious advance on Mastercard by partnering with Coinbase and Binance for their payment cards. For its part, PayPal would not have waived the crypto-currency and would even consider offering these digital assets to its $ 320 million members ” in the coming months “. A decision which, if confirmed, would be a real success for the community of crypto.
A debit card linked to crypto-currencies
Last November, Wirex announced its first debit card, stamped Visa. The assets in crypto-currencies held by users on the account Wirex can since be spent directly with the card payment. Now, Wirex will also be able to issue cards Mastercard to cover all the network of dealers.
Pavel Matveev, the boss and co-founder of Wirex welcomes this agreement with Mastercard, a further step towards ” a world where all currencies are on par “. With Wirex, Mastercard laying a first stone. What about the next ?
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