Mastercard has helped create trusted global standards in traditional card-based payments that have stood the test of time and today support billions of transactions per year.
The global tech leader continued to put its payments mastery on display at their new tech hub in New York City for its North America Innovation Day last month.
A series of talks and panels looking at the current and future developments of the company were kicked off by Linda Kirkpatrick, president of North America at Mastercard.
In her welcome introduction Kirkpatrick spoke about the future of the company and meeting consumers where they are now and in the future. She shared that Mastercard has acquired 30 companies and made strategic minority investment stakes in more than 100 companies.
Consumers are increasingly engaging in digitized moments throughout their day, accelerated especially during the pandemic — 58 percent of global Mastercard customers are using the contactless tap feature on their cards.
Mastercard has been hard at work bringing their same transparent and trusted approach to digital assets through distinct products and solutions, from the launches of crypto cards and CBDC pilots to the introduction of Mastercard’s Crypto Secure, Crypto Source and Crypto Credential solutions.
“The crypto industry has gone through a lot in the last few quarters,” said Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s EVP and head of crypto and blockchain, during a blockchain-focused panel.
“People look at crypto and think of it as an investment, but there’s a whole sector that’s a lot more useful for financial industries as a whole,” Dhamodharan said. “The technology itself holds a lot of promise.”
Crypto technology has a handful of use cases and utilities today, like the ability to store and move capital and value, but those use cases are limited when safety and simplicity aren’t prioritized, Dhamodharan said.
This week Mastercard took the next step on their blockchain journey with the introduction of Mastercard Multi-Token Network, a tailor-made solution for the industry.
“Our vision for MTN is to provide a set of foundational capabilities designed to make transactions within the digital asset and blockchain ecosystems secure, scalable and interoperable — ultimately enabling more efficient payment and commerce applications,” wrote Dhamodharan.
Mastercard aims to provide a transparent and trusted foundation that allows everyone from small startups to massive financial institutions to innovate and build upon.
MTN represents one of Mastercard’s most ambitious projects in the digital asset space to date.
Mastercard in Vancouver
Mastercard’s presence is well established in Canada. One year ago Mastercard unveiled an Experience Centre in Vancouver that features emerging products and solutions securing digital payments on a global scale, including those developed locally.
Vancouver’s Experience Centre is located within the company’s Global Intelligence and Cyber Centre of Excellence, where local and international tech communities are invited to collaborate on cyber security innovation.
Mastercard’s Global Intelligence and Cyber Centre of Excellence was first announced in 2020, tapping into areas of cyber and intelligence, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things.
Since then Vancouver’s Centre of Excellence has made progress toward its long-term goals, through filing 30 local patents to secure cyberspace, conducting helpful research, and creating more than 200 tech jobs, ranging from software engineers to data scientists.
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