Denouncing Cryptocurrencies While Embracing Blockchain

Alongside the likes of Visa, Mastercard have maintained this skeptical approach to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from as early as 2014.

The promotional material was just that, an advert to promote Mastercard's services while trying to discredit Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, which were starting to gain popularity at the time.

In March, Mastercard's Asia-Pacific co-president Ari Sarker said the company is open to supporting national virtual currencies launched and operated by central banks.

While Mastercard steer clear of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, they've been slogging away developing their own DLT-based offerings of the past 12 months.

All in all, it's believed that Mastercard Labs have filed over 30 patents for Blockchain and cryptocurrency related projects.

Making use of the security and transparency provided by Blockchain technology, Mastercard launched a product that they believe is "Is safe, secure, auditable and easy to scale."

It's probable these cost savings are a driving factor behind Mastercard's aggressive moves to adopt and implement Blockchain solutions to several parts of its business.

While Mastercard has firmly opposed Bitcoin as currency, Sarker also told the Financial Times that the company was running a Bitcoin pilot program in Japan.

Mastercard seem to be scrambling to hire the best Blockchain minds in the business to continue the development of their payment processing.

Among the news roles, Mastercard are looking for Blockchain specialists, software engineers, data scientists, cloud infrastructure specialists and information security specialists.