MasterCard Financial News

PhonePe on Thursday announced the launch of its Point-of-sale (POS) device that enables merchants to accept payments via debit cards, credit cards and UPI. «The device comes preloaded with the PhonePe POS App and supports transactions through tap/swipe/dip and interoperable dynamic QR codes,» PhonePe said in a statement. The launch of one-stop POS solution by PhonePe will intensify the competition for strong rival Paytm, which has in recent months handed over their all-in-one POS machines to check-out counters across the country that was otherwise accustomed to using the devices from established banks. One97 Communications, the parent entity of Paytm, had last month reported a 118 % spike in payment devices subscribed by its merchants in the first two months of this fiscal year that started April 1. The number of merchants paying subscription for its payment devices including soundbox and PoS machines rose to 75 lakh during April and May from 34 lakh in the comparable year-earlier period. «With PhonePe’s extensive network of over 3.5 crore merchants nationwide, our goal is to expand this solution pan India and deploy 150,000 devices by next year,» said Vivek Lohcheb, Head of Offline Business at PhonePe.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is proposing that banks and card network providers like Mastercard, Visa and American Express cannot get into exclusive arrangements that curb competition and put the consumer at a disadvantage.Card issuer banks will henceforth have to issue cards from more than one network provider and will have to provide an option to customers to choose any one among the multiple card networks, RBI said in a draft circular. The central bank said that existing arrangements between card networks and card issuers (banks and non-banks) are not conducive to the availability of choice for customers. It has called for public comments by August 4 and set October 1 as the date to implement the circular.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday proposed restraining card issuers, such as banks, from entering into exclusive arrangements with card networks that forbid them from tapping rival networks. The regulator said it has found that arrangements between card networks and issuers are not “conducive to the availability of choice for customers". RBI also said card issuers should issue cards across more than one card network and provide customers with an option to choose any one among the multiple card networks.

RBI) is proposing that banks and card network providers like MasterCard, VISA and American Express cannot get into exclusive arrangements that curbs competition and puts the consumer at a disadvantage.Card issuer banks will henceforth have to issue cards from more than one network provider and will have to provide an option to customers to choose any one among the multiple card networks, RBI said in a draft circular. In the draft circular RBI said that existing arrangements between card networks and card issuers (banks and non-banks) are not conducive to the availability of choice for customers. It has called for public comments by August 4 and set October 1 as the date to implement the circular.

RBI) on Wednesday asked banks and non-bank lenders to issue credit, debit and prepaid cards on multiple networks to give customers the freedom to choose. «On a review, it is observed that arrangements existing between card networks and card issuers (banks and non-banks) are not conducive to the availability of choice for customers,» the RBI said in a draft circular seeking comments.

Yiu is also confident in tech companies such as Nvidia, ASML and Lam Research, which made it to the fund's top ten holdings.

Goldman Sachs is considering exiting its partnership with Apple, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The iPhone-maker and Goldman Sachs started rolling out a virtual credit card in 2019.

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.__________

The network will have four “pillars of trust”: trust in counterparty; trust in digital payment asset; trust in technology; and trust in consumer protections.A beta version of MTN is being made available in the UK and will be used for pilot applications and use cases with financial institutions, fintechs and central banks, beginning with the tokenised bank deposits exploration.

Who'd think a little plastic rectangle could be associated with so much mystery and angst?

The world’s second-largest payment-processing company, Mastercard, has announced that it is expanding its Engage program to help scale crypto and blockchain technology. 

Disclaimer: The text below is a press release that is not part of  Cryptonews.com  editorial content.

Payment giant Mastercard finds that crypto and blockchain are useful and can bring much more value to financial industries as a whole, but only when they tackle the security and ease of use issues in order to build trust. 

Among the partners onboard are crypto wallet providers Bit2Me, Lirium, Mercado Bitcoin and Uphold, which are working on an initial project to enable transfers between the US and Latin America and the Caribbean corridors. The company is also teaming up with public blockchain network organisations Aptos Labs, Ava Labs, Polygon and The Solana Foundation.

Consensus, the annual crypto and blockchain conference, attracted over 15,000 attendees, 220 sponsors and 410 speakers to its 2023 edition in Austin, Texas, despite recent regulatory struggles around cryptocurrency adoption in the United States. 

Among the partners onboard are crypto wallet providers Bit2Me, Lirium, Mercado Bitcoin and Uphold, which are working on an initial project to enable transfers between the US and Latin America and the Caribbean corridors. The company is also teaming up with public blockchain network organisations Aptos Labs, Ava Labs, Polygon and The Solana Foundation.

In this week’s newsletter, read about how Mastercard launched an accelerator program for musicians powered by nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and how online safety groups urged Meta to refrain from allowing minors into its new metaverse. Check out what happens to NFTs when a collector dies, and, in other news, find out how publishers are looking for alternatives to play-to-earn gaming. And don’t forget this week’s Nifty News, featuring Bitcoin (BTC) miners earning from Ordinals and Reddit facing backlash for Gen 3 avatars. 

Mastercard, a legacy company rooted in traditional finance, has been actively involved in Web3 initiatives in recent years. On April 12, the company announced its latest venture, a new artist accelerator program. However, this time, it added a Web3 twist. The program is nonfungible token (NFT)-gated and therefore only accessible to holders of its Mastercard Music Pass NFT.

Mastercard has been among legacy companies rooted in traditional finance (TradFi) to jump into the Web3 space. The company has been involved with a number of Web3 integrations in recent years. 

Take, for example, the recent issues that Circle-issued USD Coin (USDC) faced when it depegged from the U.S. dollar following Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. Two weeks later, Mastercard boldly integrated the stablecoin into its infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region, allowing users to spend USDC through its network. It’s happening, folks!

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.__________