Mastercard and crypto firm Bakkt Holdings are now in a partnership to bring cryptocurrency closer to the customers. Bakkt’s part of the partnership will be to offer custodial services for the ones who sign up.
Things might greatly change for Mastercard as it has decided to enter the cryptocurrency sector. Adding crypto card payments to their services will now be possible for partner banks and other merchants on the company’s payment network.
Such facilitation will entail the release of Bitcoin wallets, credit and debit cards with digital asset payment capabilities, as well as the ability to earn crypto incentives, reports CNBC.
And that is not all, this change will make it possible for airlines or hotels loyalty points to be converted into BTC.
The Executive Vice President of Digital Partnership, Sherri Haymond, gave an announcement for CNBC. She mentioned that the key reason for this partnership is to make it easy for their partners to facilitate crypto services into their own services.
This Bakkt partnership will make it possible for banks, financial technologies, or even merchants to have their customers trade or hold cryptocurrency, added Haymond.
Mastercard together with Visa is one of the main payment networks in the whole world. It has a global network of over 20,000 financial institutions and claims to have 2.8 billion Mastercards in circulation. As it is, such a partnership will be highly positive for the crypto sector, not only in the US but all around the world.
The large customer base of Mastercard could lead to an increase in the overall Bitcoin adoption. Many customers were asking for the possibility to pay in cryptocurrency as the digital assets kept rising over the past year, mentioned Haymond in the interview.
Instead of the capital going into crypto exchanges, this partnership will provide banks the chance to retain consumers on their own platform.
The CEO of Bakkt, Gavin Michael, also had something to say on the benefits of such a partnership.
Now it is easier for customers to enter because they can convert their reward points for crypto, explains Michael. He further adds that this is ideal as the customers have now the chance to make use of digital assets that would otherwise be simply staying on their balance sheets.
This is not Bakkt’s first partnership, as another one with Google was announced last week. It aims to offer digital asset services to millions of Google users, allowing them to pay merchants with cryptocurrencies using their Google Pay accounts.
Also Read: Google and Bakkt Partnership to Make Crypto Accessible to Millions of Consumers