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(Kitco News) - Mastercard has announced the launch of Crypto Credential in an effort to establish a set of common standards and infrastructure that will help attest trusted interactions among consumers and businesses using blockchain networks.
According to the announcement posted on Friday, Crypto Credential is being created to provide a way for trusted, compliant and verifiable interactions to take place on public blockchain networks in order to bring more legitimacy to the blockchain industry.
“With Mastercard Crypto Credential, we can help ensure that those interested in interacting across Web3 environments are meeting defined standards for the types of activities they’d like to pursue,” the press release said. “Mastercard Crypto Credential will not only define verification standards and levels, but also provide necessary enabling technology to help bring more use cases to life.”
One benefit of the new service is that it allows for the creation of easy-to-remember aliases to help consumers share wallet addresses with one another. This helps to improve the consumer experience and reduces the potential for errors.
Crypto Credential will also “bring richer information to blockchain transactions through metadata, helping to define attributes of a wallet to help ensure that transactions are completed as intended,” Mastercard said.
The service will utilize CipherTrace’s suite of services to verify addresses and support Travel Rule compliance for cross-border transactions. Mastercard has partnered with crypto wallet providers Bit2Me, Lirium, Mercado Bitcoin and Uphold to enable transfers between the U.S and Latin America and the Caribbean corridors.
The payments firm has also joined forces with public blockchain network organizations Aptos Labs, Ava Labs, Polygon and The Solana Foundation to help introduce the application to developers in their ecosystems. “Together, we’ll collaborate to enhance verification in NFTs, ticketing, enterprise and other payments solutions,” Mastercard said.
This new service is just the latest cryptocurrency-related endeavor to be announced by Mastercard as the firm has been one of the most active multinational financial service providers in the crypto space in recent years.
In October, the firm announced the launch of ‘Crypto Secure’, a new crypto service desk focused on helping banks identify and prevent fraud from occurring on crypto merchant platforms. Later that month, the company launched ‘Crypto Source’, a new program that enables financial institutions to begin offering secure crypto trading services to their customers.
In January, Mastercard partnered with Polygon to launch the Web3-based Mastercard Artist Accelerator program, which is designed to help up-and-coming artists get established and connect with fans in the Web3 arena.
