While most finance and payment services are taking cautions about crypto, Mastercard is looking to get involved further in the industry. The company announced earlier this week that it wants to establish partnerships with more crypto firms as a way to expand its crypto payment card program.
Mastercard has already teamed up with a number of industry giants, including the world’s leading crypto exchange Binance as well as other crypto exchanges like Nexo and Gemini. As part of the collaboration, Mastercard and these crypto first offer special crypto payment cards in a number of countries.
For example, Binance Card is a Mastercard-provided prepaid payment card that links with user Binance accounts. The clients are able to make payments in traditional currencies from their cryptocurrency holdings on the platform.
“We have dozens of partners around the world who offer crypto card programs, and they continue to expand,” Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s head of crypto and blockchain, told Reuters. “Providing access to crypto in a safe way is also part of our value proposition, and we’re continuing to do that.”
The crypto industry currently faces a challenging environment as U.S. regulators continue to aggressively pursue legal actions against crypto firms that don’t comply with the existing regulations. Binance is currently facing a suit by U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, while SEC is taking action against the US-based crypto exchange Coinbase.