Mastercard opens-up access to its blockchain technology

Mastercard

Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) is opening up access to its blockchain technology via its application programming interface (API).

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Mastercard is betting big on blockchain and the company said its aim is to provide a blockchain solution that meets every need of financial institutions and their end-customers.

The payment technology giant said it has tested and validated its blockchain and will initially implement the technology in the business-to-business (B2B) sector to address challenges of speed, transparency and costs in cross-border payments.

Mastercard Blockchain Technology

The Mastercard blockchain technology improves privacy by sharing transaction details only amongst the participants of a transaction and maintains a fully auditable and valid ledger of transactions.

Partners can use the blockchain APIs to create a range of new applications and can get software development kits in six different languages for much easier integration.

Mastercard said that its blockchain technology “is designed for commercial processing speed and extensibility by reaching consensus between a trusted network moderator and network participants.” It is integrated into the company’s payment network that includes 22,000 financial institutions to move funds that have been committed on the blockchain.

“By combining Mastercard blockchain technology with our settlement network and associated network rules, we have created a solution that is safe, secure, auditable and easy to scale,” Ken Moore, executive vice president of Mastercard Labs, said in a statement. “When it comes to payments, we want to provide choice and flexibility to our partners where they are able to seamlessly use both our existing and new payment rails based on the needs and requirements of their customers.”

Meanwhile, Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) has filed for more than 35 patents in blockchain. It also invested in Digital Currency Group, a collaborator that builds, incubates and seeds Bitcoin and blockchain technology-related companies.

Recently, the payment technology firm joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance to explore the possibilities of the Ethereum technology across a range of potential use cases, many of them outside the scope of the company’s traditional payments environment.

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