Mastercard Gets Serious With Four Blockchain Patents

Recently Bitcoin.com reported on the multinational financial services firm Mastercard releasing blockchain APIs. Now the payment processing company is filing for four blockchain patents.  

Also read: Visa Invites Lenders to Test Blockchain Payment System

Mastercard Files Patents for Blockchain-Based Settlement

Mastercard is taking the blockchain phenomenon very seriously. Just a few weeks after revealing its developer-focused blockchain APIs, the firm is moving on patent territory. According to patent applications, Steven Charles Davis and Ashish Raghavendra Tetali created software that utilizes blockchain-based settlement. The patents describe applications that perform validation, fraud control, and managing title transactions.

The newly-filed patents are the beginning of Mastercard pondering blockchain-based frameworks within the company’s payment processing architecture.      

“Accordingly, the use of traditional payment networks and payment systems technologies in combination with blockchain currencies may provide consumers and merchants the benefits of the decentralized blockchain while still maintaining security of account information and provide a strong defense against fraud and theft,” explained Mastercard during the announcement.

‘Blockchain Has a Role in the Future of Commerce’

Mastercard stated that traditional payment services and processing platforms are subject to manipulation, data breaches, and error. Consumers are trusting blockchain currencies for “confidentiality and security” these days, the company added. However, Mastercard believes current blockchain currencies could use improvement.

“Blockchain is an emerging technology, and at Mastercard, we believe that there is a role for blockchain in the future of commerce,” said the payment processing giant.

When it comes to emerging technologies, Mastercard says it is “keeping no stone unturned” and is focused on the innovations that shape markets. The firm details its current expansions, and digital initiatives keep Mastercard well positioned.       

Mastercard May Apply Blockchain to its Core Systems

Since the beginning of the blockchain hysteria, many financial incumbents and startups have been filing patents. Just recently Blockstream has made headlines for filing defensive blockchain patents in fear of IP trolling. Additionally, other firms such as Bank of America, Coinbase, ShoCard, Nasdaq, and Goldman Sachs have all filed cryptocurrency related patents over the past two years.

Mastercard aims to forward the technological race with their new blockchain APIs and patents. Blockchain could very well be applied to the company’s infrastructure in the near future at the rate of the firm’s current development. This past summer, in an interview with Ann Cairns, president of international markets at for MasterCard, the executive stated:      

“We are already building use cases in our laboratories to see how to include it together with our core systems.”

What do you think about Mastercard filing four blockchain patents? Let us know in the comments below.  

Images via Pixabay, and Mastercard websites. 

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