Mastercard bets on cryptocurrency payments
In the future seen through the lens of Mastercard," consumers will have between your hands a device, of any form, through which you can choose how to activate payments, whether with the card, the blockchain, access to the current account or any other future idea. The bank - underlines Centemero - will maintain its central role, giving the possibility to activate all possible instruments. And merchants will accept payments, overcoming the hysteria and false myths of the world's most expensive transactions ”.
Making room for cryptocurrencies in the payment card ecosystem is not a technologically prohibitive operation. "A stable digital currency like the Sand dollar of the Bahamas, which is in effect a cryptocurrency, is for us a currency like any other: we have included it in our network with ease, because everything is ready", assures Centemero. . "What we must guarantee are the regulatory aspects and compliance with anti-money laundering legislation, in addition to the stability of the cryptocurrency and the protection of ESG levels that must be in line with what we believe to be correct", highlights the Italian country manager of the American multinational.
There would be potential customers ready to pay in cryptocurrencies, even in Italy. “In recent years we have been passionate about the blockchain, the phenomenon exists even if the banks do not realize very well how important it is. In Italy - reveals Centemero - Mastercard has one million cards that feed cryptocurrency funds ", guarded by digital wallets such as Coinbase or Binance. "And the volumes that these transactions generate are equal to the online shopping in Italian supermarkets".
55% of Italians paid via device The goal of the payments multinational is to make transactions "ever simpler". And Italy is being ready, according to the metrics collected in the summer by Mastercard. In Venice, on the occasion of the partnership with the Biennale del Cinema, the company presented data from the New Payments Index which shows the consolidation of digital payments in the country, with new tools gaining more popularity among consumers than cash - which yet it continues to be preferred to electronic means in 62% of transactions.
74% of Italians, it emerged from the study, made use of at least one payment method emerging during the year, showing a particular preference for account to account payments (35%) and money transfer apps (25%). 45% have increased the use of at least one emerging payment instrument, while 55% have increasingly relied on systems via device - smartphone or smartwatch. Particular vivacity was shown by the Buy Now, Pay Later payments which, according to the analysis of transactions on the Mastercard circuit, were used by 49% of the population at least once in the last twelve months.
“The growth of payments digital is taking place constantly throughout Italy, without any North-South digital divide ", highlights the country manager who for the next three years is betting on the growth of point-to-point payments between devices and is not afraid of the advance of large companies technology: “They could cut us off already in the morning, but why should they? The battle is won by the safer and faster: the cards - concludes Centemero - will not disappear, but we are ready for everything else ”.
