Mastercard

Basics

• global payments provider
• From Forbes Blockchain 50 (Apr 16, 2019):

"The credit card behemoth has applied for 80 blockchain-related patents. Sixteen have been granted, including one for linking cryptocurrencies to traditional bank accounts and another for increasing the privacy of blockchains. Mastercard rarely comments on its blockchain ambitions, but it recently announced it’s working with Amazon and Accenture to build more transparent supply chains where, for example, someone buying a pair of jeans could see where they were made and tip the creator through Mastercard’s payment rails. More significantly, if Mastercard can tie its massive, high-speed payments network to blockchain-based payments, it can open a new revenue stream and solve a problem that plagues most blockchain technology: processing times are still slow. Full profile"

• From Forbes Blockchain 50 (19-2-2020):

"Rather than be disrupted, America’s second-largest credit card company has applied for 116 blockchain-related patents and has several projects in process. It’s working with wholesale food buyer Topco to give consumers a peek into where their groceries came from. It’s testing a faster, more transparent cross-border payments network with banks. And it’s trying to convince central banks who are looking to issue digital currencies to use its rails to help move the new coins."

Tech

• Its own (19-2-2020) platform, built from scratch.

Main links 

• Was a consortium member of Facebook's Libra but left. From CoinSpice (3-2-2020):

"During an interview with Financial Times, Banga [the CEO] declared “when you don’t understand how money gets made, it gets made in ways you don’t like,” criticizing the business model of the platform. Also, he stated the project was presented first as an altruistic way of including people into the financial system, and then degenerated into a proprietary wallet. “It went from this altruistic idea into their own wallet. I’m like: ‘this doesn’t sound right,’” he concluded.

• Has funded DCG
• "Is to develop (11-9-2019) a blockchain-powered cross-border payments platform in partnership with enterprise-focused blockchain firm R3. The platform will be built on Corda Enterprise, the commercial version of the platform, as opposed to the open-source Corda Network, R3 told CoinDesk. The news of the partnership also comes just days after Mastercard joined the Marco Polo trade finance blockchain network founded by R3 and TradeIX."

• ConsenSys announced (19-4-2021) a $65m fundraising round from JPMorgan, UBS, Mastercard and Filecoin’s ProtocolLabs. Created Consensys Rollups. From Bitcoin.com (18-12-2021):

"The company enlisted Mastercard programmers to design the solution, which aims to allow the network to reach a throughput of 10,000 TPS (transactions per second), according to a PR statement. The solution can be implemented on top of private, permissioned protocols like Quorum, or on public chains like Ethereum."

• Acquired blockchain intelligence firm Ciphertrace (10-9-2021):

"The Ciphertrace acquisition cost was not disclosed in Mastercard’s announcement. Mastercard also explained that Ciphertrace is one of many investments as the company has invested and partnered with firms like Uphold, Bitpay, and Gemini."

Current employees

• Key leader: Ken Moore, EVP and head of Mastercard Labs (still as of 19-2-2020)
• Peter Klein, executive vice president of new payment platforms at Mastercard