(Kitco News) - The financial service provider Mastercard has announced the launch of ‘Crypto Secure’, a new crypto service desk that deals with risk management and is designed to bring additional security and trust to the digital ecosystem.
According to the press release from Mastercard, “Crypto Secure combines insights and technology from CipherTrace with proprietary information to help card issuers stay compliant with the complex regulatory landscape of the digital assets sector.”
The primary focus of the new platform is to help banks identify and prevent fraud from occurring on crypto merchant platforms.
“The platform allows [card issuers] to better assess the risk profile of crypto exchanges or other providers, collectively known as Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), and decide which purchases of cryptocurrency to approve,” Mastercard said.
This will allow issuers to easily identify and reject transactions with crypto merchants on a case-by-case basis instead of employing a one-size-fits-all approach that could potentially restrict legitimate activity.
Through the use of artificial intelligence, blockchain data and public records of crypto transactions, the new platform helps to determine the crime-related risks of crypto exchanges within the Mastercard network. A similar service is already in place to help banks deal with fiat currency transactions.
Helping to protect card issuers and users is the main goal of the new platform, according to Ajay Bhalla, President of Mastercard Cyber and Intelligence.
“Crypto Secure will provide card issuers with a platform that allows them access to insights which will improve the safety of crypto purchases, increasing consumer confidence and creating the same trust they expect when paying with Mastercard,” Bhalla said. “The idea is that the kind of trust we provide for digital commerce transactions, we want to be able to provide the same kind of trust to digital asset transactions for consumers, banks and merchants.”
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The platform will allow issuers to: accurately identify the crypto exchanges; measure transaction approvals and declines; understand, at a portfolio level, their exposure to crypto risk through a single score; and access a benchmark rating for comparison to a peer group of financial institutions.
A color-coded risk rating will be provided for each crypto merchant, which represents the risk of suspicious or fraudulent activity connected to that merchant.
Overall, the new service is designed to help further the integration of digital assets into mainstream financial services, allowing crypto holders to utilize their holdings in their daily lives.
“Crypto Secure is the latest step in Mastercard’s broader digital assets strategy, which helps bridge the gap between traditional finance and the world of crypto, and enables individuals to seamlessly spend funds from their crypto accounts in everyday transactions,” Mastercard said.
