The president of MasterCard Europe, Mark Barnett, recently expressed his doubts that blockchain technology will bring much change to the global payment industry.
In an interview with Vedomosti, a Russian daily Newspaper, Barnett said:
“I think it’s more likely to be used in digital identification, for example, to identify an individual or to trade in valuables.”
He added that it “would be an exaggeration” to say that MasterCard works with blockchain technology.
Despite Barnett’s confidence that blockchain will not be a rival to MasterCard, Ripple is a strong competitor. Ripple provides fast, cheap and scalable options to both digital assets and monetary payment platforms. Founded in 2012, Ripple now provides services to over 300 financial institutions such as MoneyGram and Standard Chartered Bank.
In addition, Ripple currently has different payment corridors in different countries, running on its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product. The company also plans on establishing more ODL channels that will enable the use of its XRP coin.
Marcus Treacher, the Senior Vice President of Customer Success at Ripple said in an interview published by City A.M:
“We have established On-Demand Liquidity corridors into Mexico, the Philippines, Australia, and Europe, and we’re hoping to further this expansion by opening corridors to APAC and EMEA this year.”
Recently, another global payment giant, Visa, has been seeking IT engineers with experience in blockchain payments projects and other aspects of payment processing. This suggests that the company may also be investing in blockchain-based payments
Mastercard recently created a new cross-border payment platform in partnership with R3.
Image Credits: Pixabay
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