How payment giants embrace Bitcoin and blockchain technology

Earlier this week, news that Mastercard participated in a private funding round for Digital Currency Group sent ripples of excitement throughout the crypto space.

While this is Mastercard’s first crypto-related investment, it is not the first mainstream financial company to dabble in Bitcoin and blockchain technology.

Banks have openly embraced blockchain technology, and many well-known figures from traditional finance have praised its potential. But how exactly will payment giants like Mastercard react to crypto?

Whether it’s partnering with existing companies embracing Bitcoin through direct investments or publicly commenting on Bitcoin and its underlying technology, there always seems to be a notable interplay between the payments giant and the crypto world.

1. MasterCard

Founded: 1966

Company Type: Public

Company size: Over 10,000

Revenue: Net revenue for the fourth quarter was $2.4 billion, an increase of 14% over the same period in 2013.

US payments giant Mastercard is one of 11 investors in an undisclosed new funding round巴里•希尔伯特’s Digital Currency Group (DCG).

Last November, in its statement on digital currency submitted to the UK Treasury, the company also stated that the risks posed by digital currency far outweigh the potential benefits. The news of the investment now is quite surprising.

马修•德赖弗, president of Southeast Asia for Mastercard, also took a critical view on digital currencies in December 2014, echoing the company’s argument that digital currencies are too risky.

Driver said Mastercard was “not entirely happy with the idea of ​​cryptocurrency,” adding that the technology went against the entire principle the credit card giant had built its business on.

The report says Mastercard has spoken out against the perceived risks of Bitcoin, asking regulators to create a “level playing field” for the payments system.

“We believe that all participants in the payment system that provide similar services to consumers should be regulated in the same way to achieve a level playing field. Furthermore, any regulations should be technology-neutral to ensure they can be applied to new payment technology providers, especially as technology advances.”

Mastercard has applied for a patent to integrate Bitcoin into its online shopping cart design for global customers, but the card insists the filing should not be viewed as an endorsement of Bitcoin by the company.

2. VISA

Founded: 1958

Company Type: Joint Stock Company

Company size: 5,000-10,000 people

Revenue: GAAP net income was $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014, a 10% decrease from the same period last year.

Like Mastercard, Visa has also invested in the crypto space, participating in a $30 million funding round for blockchain startup Chain. Earlier this week, Visa revealed a new proof of concept that uses Bitcoin’s blockchain to keep records. At the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas, a project was first proposed to digitize the car rental process, using Bitcoin to create a digital fingerprint for each car on the blockchain. Visa is involved in the project through its digital innovation unit. Unlike Mastercard’s dismissive attitude towards digital currencies, some Visa executives have expressed positive views on Bitcoin and blockchain. At the Wired Money conference this summer,乔纳森•沃克斯, executive director of new digital payments and strategy for Visa Europe, said:

One thing I'm often asked about is Bitcoin. I look at Bitcoin and the underlying technology of Bitcoin separately. From a currency perspective, I think it's interesting. For Visa, that's what we do - we manage currency.

Visa CEO  查理·沙尔夫said of Bitcoin last January:

“There are some really interesting things going on with Bitcoin and other things, but there’s also a lot of complexity.”

Scharf went on to state that Visa is not actively following developments in the bitcoin space: “We feel very good about our current business.”

3. American Express

Founded: 1850

Company Type: Joint Stock Company

Company size: Over 10,000 people

Revenue: American Express posted a record net profit of $5.9 billion in 2014, up 10% from the previous year.

The American Express VC team has invested in a bitcoin-to-cash app called Abra as part of the company’s recent $12 million first round of funding.

In an interview with CoinDesk, Harshul Sanghi managing partner at Equity Ventures, said it was too early to say how the company would use blockchain technology.

Let's look at which currencies are going to be important, the currencies that clients want to trade in, and that's what we'll choose.

The company is now more focused than ever on possible applications of blockchain technology.

As we watch the cryptocurrency industry evolve, we’ve seen how blockchain and distributed ledger technology can play an important role in shaping the future of finance.

The above is Sanghi’s CEO   Kenneth Chenault made the comments after he expressed his views on digital currencies in December last year.

Similar to the views of his peers, Chenault said that he sees more potential in the blockchain technology that Bitcoin relies on than in the digital currency itself. "The Bitcoin protocol will be important in the future," he said.

4. PayPal

Founded: 1998

Company Type: Joint Stock Company

Company size: Over 10,000 people

Revenue: $8 billion in 2014

In September 2014, online payment leader PayPal announced its first partnership in the Bitcoin space.

At the time, the company's senior director of strategy,斯科特•埃里森, said the company was "supporting bitcoin in some ways now and in increasing numbers, and in other ways we're holding off until we see how things develop."

Bitcoin payment processors BitPay, GoCoin and Coinbase told CoinDesk the partnership had been in the works for several months.

Rumors of a possible PayPal partnership with Bitcoin first surfaced in September 2014, after the company released a new promotional video that mentioned Bitcoin.

Earlier that year, then-CEO约翰•多纳霍hinted at the possibility of integrating Bitcoin into the company’s payment system. In an interview with CNBC, the former CEO said:

“There is no doubt that digital currencies will play an important role and we will integrate electronic currencies into our wallets.”

PayPal also held an introductory Bitcoin lecture as part of its monthly lecture series in January 2015.

Original article: http://www.coindesk.com/how-payment-giants-are-embracing-bitcoin-and-blockchain/

By Yessi Bello Perez
Translator: Orange
Reward address: 1FCiRAuQYUqMzyy7XHueLs5SCRzd11P6kj
Editor: printemps
Source (translation): Babbitt Information