Mastercard Introduces Crypto Credential Service for International Transfers

The executive in charge of crypto products and blockchain at Mastercard (MA) said the payment processing company is bringing out a service designed to ensure transactions between users’ wallets are verifiable and compliant, beginning with transfers of digital assets between countries.

In this first cross-border use case, the Mastercard Crypto Credential service, announced Friday by Raj Dhamodharan from the stage at Consensus 2023, allows wallets to be identified in transactions that are compliant with requirements such as the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) "travel rule."

Mastercard Crypto Credential, a set of common standards for attestation of interactions, uses technology from CipherTrace, the well-known blockchain analytics platform Mastercard agreed to acquire in late 2021.

“If two people want to transfer value from one country to another country, the level of compliance and verification needed is complex,” Dhamodharan said. “So how do you identify those wallets. And how do you exchange enough information about the other party?"

Cross-border transactions have been a focus of blockchain tracker CipherTrace, the creator of a cryptocurrency system that helps companies comply with the travel rule. Under that rule, whenever crypto worth over $1,000 is transacted between two parties, the crypto service provider of the sender is expected to communicate the personally identifiable information of the sender to the crypto service provider of the recipient, and vice versa.