Mastercard, the fiat payments giant, has joined arms with Web3 as one of the most popular crypto payments solutions, MoonPay. The Web3 payments giant announced the defining moment of the Web2 and Web3 partnership on 25 October 2023, via their X (formerly Twitter) account. Experts say that this opens doors for both companies to connect with the other’s territories.
For Mastercard, this looks like a way to expand the base using experiential marketing to leverage Web3 customers. On the user side, it will empower the market strategy of the fiat giant and give it a push into Web3.
On the other hand, for MoonPay, this unlocks new onboardees from the Web2 fiat space to introduce them to the Web3 domain. On the user side, it explores an instant transaction procedure and regulation compliance for crypto users.
MoonPay is a fintech company, specifically operating in the crypto domain for providing on-ramping and off-ramping services. It facilitates ultra-fast payment transactions for cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Transactions range from crypto-to-crypto to crypto-to-fiat, including debit and credit cards like Visa, and Mastercard. Mobile payment applications like Google Pay, and Apple Pay, and bank transfers with fiat currencies are allowed as well.
Mastercard is the world’s second-largest electronic payments processing company which deals exclusively in fiat currencies.
What Does the Mastercard-MoonPay Partnership Mean?
MoonPay chose X to make the announcement, which was initially made jointly by the companies’ representative duo. Keith Grossman, President of Enterprise at MoonPay, and Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Communications Officer of Mastercard, took the stage to drop the thrilling declaration. It was at the Money 20/20 conference that took place in Las Vegas from October 22-25, 2023.
🚨Exciting news from @money2020 🚨
Our very own President of Enterprise @KeithGrossman & Mastercard’s Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, @RajaRajamannar, took the stage to announce our collaboration. 🤝
We’re thrilled to team up with @Mastercard, the best is yet to come! pic.twitter.com/IRTXsO7kd1
— MoonPay 🟣 (@moonpay) October 25, 2023
Mastercard aims to explore tools and other options to integrate various Web3 services into its platform to expand its market. It is an experiential marketing move to connect to more customers by leveraging the Web3 space. It will explore the crypto payments platform’s infrastructure to understand the decentralized payments structure.
According to MoonPay’s blog post, “Otherlife will play a key role in the partnership”. Otherlife is a subsidiary of MoonPay that provides creative agency services to Web3 platforms. It is an experiential studio for design, graphics, and other marketing and business development strategy services.
Within the partnership, the fiat payments platform can employ Otherlife to implement experiential marketing for its fiat platform. It will also use Otherlife’s help for building creative schemes, front-end developer programs, and business development strategies for other Web3 services.
Notably, earlier this year, the credit card company also unveiled its ambitious plan to launch crypto credit and debit cards shortly. It will leverage its extensive global network to engage lucratively and expand with potential cryptocurrency partners. They are calling it– the Mastercard Engage Program. Otherlife could help the project go a long way.
Few experts are projecting that this could be a learning step towards developing the fiat’s blockchain-based architecture in the future. This could be especially useful in the emerging talk about CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currency).
Both companies will work closely with each other to develop and improve consumer experiences on their respective platforms. An important goal for MoonPay, through this partnership, is “to increase compliance and trust across the Web3 industry.”, according to one of the company’s LinkedIn posts.
MoonPay will employ Mastercard’s Crypto Credential System to ensure adherence with the regulations. Mastercard Crypto Credential System is a set of standards to ensure secure interactions between consumers and organizations in a blockchain network, in compliance with the regulatory authorities.
They will also integrate the Send and Click to Pay options of the Mastercard platform for a seamless payment mechanism into their Web3 stack. Besides, the fiat payments platform will leverage the crypto payments platform’s entire Web3 portfolio, including Auth, MoonPay Passport, HyperMint facility, and ETHPass.
MoonPay passport is the platform’s native Web3 passport to send, receive, and store cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Auth is an identity verification mechanism used by the platform, to ensure users’ security.
HyperMint is the autonomous NFT-minting feature and is very developer-friendly for minting, storing, and managing creator’s NFTs.
ETHPass is a very exciting feature provided by the platform for NFT owner to execute their NFTs for real-world utilities. They can use it by integrating the crypto assets into off-ramping via fiat services like Apple and Google wallets. This can be easily and effectively integrated into Mastercard’s fiat services.
MoonPay’s CEO and co-founder Ivan Soto-Wright commented, “We’re excited to collaborate with Mastercard, a prominent supporter of Web3 and the digital economy, to redefine customer loyalty and engagement. This is a big step forward for Web3. Joining forces will create new opportunities to showcase blockchain’s potential in establishing unique connections and meaningful moments while broadening our industry’s overall reach.”
Mastercard’s Other Crypto Ventures
This isn’t the first time the world’s second-largest payments company has ventured into the Web3 space. It is currently developing multiple crypto projects in partnership with many leading crypto industry names.
Mastercard’s first tryst with MoonPay happened with its June 2022 move to allow its cardholders to buy and trade NFTs directly without buying cryptocurrency first. It allowed support for multiple platforms like Immutable, Candy Digital, The Sandbox, Mintable, Spring, Nifty Gateway, and MoonPay.
Mastercard Artist Accelerator Program is also a huge development that allows artists to harness the company’s secure, scalable, and trusted technology, along with its lucrative market base. It makes use of NFTs to connect these artists to Web3 and procure profits from selling their art.
A recently released product in the program was the Mastercard Music Pass NFT which gets the user access to the Artist Accelerator Program for Web3 musicians.
The company is also actively collaborating with self-custodial crypto wallet firms like MetaMask and Ledger. It aims to integrate the card services for these wallets for high security and seamless transfer of funds. It is also working on solutions to lower Ethereum’s gas fees.
In October 2022, it partnered with Paxos, a blockchain company, working on an exchange provider for cryptocurrencies, using the financial banks’ interface. The collaborative effort of the company will help its users enable crypto trading capabilities using their bank’s custodial interface.
Crypto enthusiasts are excited about these developments which are evidence of the fact that the 57-year-old payments giant is working actively to promote crypto adoption. This could mean a hyper-bullish rally leading out of the crypto winter, into a spring.
Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2023/10/27/mastercard-partners-with-moonpay-onboarding-web2-populace-to-web3/