Like other companies in the financial sector, Mastercard has been experimenting with blockchain technology for quite some time. Now, the credit card opens its programming interface for contract partners, so that they can integrate the mastercard blockchain into their own applications.
When Satoshi Nakamoto published his Whitepaper to Bitcoin eleven years ago, the response was modest. Meanwhile the sheet has been used. It is true that cryptoscripts are still a niche. But the blockchain attracts a lot of interest. Every company in the financial sector that is doing something is researching how the technology can use it for its purposes.
Advantage for cross-border payments
Mastercard is no exception. The credit card issuer has developed its own version of the blockchain. Now he takes the next step. On October 20, 2017, the company announced that it would allow retailers and partner banks access to the API of its blockchain so that they could integrate the technology into their applications.
Mastercard makes its blockchain available exclusively for business-to-business transactions. Peer-to-peer payments will follow at a later date. The blockchain is intended to ensure a higher transaction speed, better transparency and lower costs, especially in cross-border payment transactions.
Not just for payments
In addition to payment transactions, Mastercard sees potential for further applications. For example, product credentials could be stored in the blockchain. As a result, luxury goods or pharmaceuticals can be traced back across the entire supply chain with little effort and can be distinguished from counterfeits. As a further example of information that could be stored in the blockchain in the future, the payment processor calls the service data of vehicles.
To the technique behind his blockchain, Mastercard says little. It is clear that the transactions are not carried out in a crypt currency, but with conventional money. In contrast to Bitcoin and Ethereum, whose main problem is the limited scalability, Mastercard has trimmed its blockchain according to its own data to commercial processing speed and good extensibility. However, for this purpose, the credit card company waives complete decentralization. As a further advantage over other blockchain implementations, the company mentions the link with its payment network, which covers around 22,000 financial institutions worldwide.