Mastercard, one of the biggest financial payments providers in the world, has entered into a partnership with Immersve, a Web3 payment protocol, allowing its users to make crypto payments both across the digital and Metaverse worlds. In order to facilitate transactions on Mastercard’s network, USD Coin (USDC) will be used.
Mastercard is foraying into the burgeoning world of Web3 with full steam. The payments giant has initiated several efforts to increase its presence in the digital world. Recently, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), a high profile tech show, Mastercard, revealed the company has collaborated with Polygon, a scaling blockchain built on top of Ethereum, to launch a Web3 focused incubator to help artists connect with their fans.
A New Partnership
In the latest string of partnerships, Mastercard has teamed up with New Zealand based Web3 innovator, Immersive, enabling Web3 users to use decentralized protocols to settle real-time cryptocurrency transactions. This means, it will not require a user’s digital assets to be held as collateral by a third party, giving users complete control of their digital currency. Users will be able to use their existing Web3 wallets to make direct crypto payments without relying on a third party for collateral.
Instead, Immersve will partner with a third-party settlement provider and allow its users to use USDC for all purchases. In addition, Web3 wallets and decentralized finance protocols can integrate into Immersve’s APIs and smart contracts to transact anywhere Mastercard is accepted.
As per the official website, Immersive has collaborated with Mastercard to address issues related to KYC/AML, online fraud detection as well as blockchain analytics. The Immersive platform would also leverage the Mastercard Identity Services and CipherTrace solutions to help users resolve any potential issues. Jerome Faury, CEO at Immersve said,
“Collaborating with a well-known and trusted brand like Mastercard is a big step towards mainstream adoption of web3 wallets.”
Mastercard Strengthens Web3 Commitments
In 2022, the financial juggernaut joined forces with a number of crypto-focused companies to take up a commanding pistion in the world of digital assets. From launching a crypto program to make it easier for different financial institutions to offer crypto trading to their clients to unveiling a new crypto related solution to help banks prevent fraud, Mastercard is solidifying its position as one of the leading players in the crypto world. In a statement, Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communications officer at Mastercard, said,
“This past year was big for us, with experimental web3 activations around the world.”
⚡️Game changer!⚡️
We're excited to announce our new partnership with @Mastercard. Stay tuned as we work to unlock a new way to purchase NFTs using Mastercard cards.
Learn more👇https://t.co/3Yazzbz0ws
— Coinbase (@coinbase) January 18, 2022
Last year, Mastercard inked a deal with crypto exchange, Coinbase to allow card payments on the latter’s nonfungible tokens (NFT) marketplace. Previously, Mastercard had entered into an agreement with Circle to use USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin to facilitate crypto-to-fiat conversions in a pilot program that will test using USDC as a means for card issuers to more easily settle payments to Mastercard.
