Mastercard has opened access to its blockchain technology via its application programming interface published on Mastercard Developers.
The multinational financial services firm says its blockchain solution, which has been tested and validated, provides a new way for consumers, businesses and banks to make financial transactions in a more secure and private way.
It is aimed at providing solutions and transparency in cross-border transactions and will initially be implemented in the business-to-business (B2B) space to address challenges of speed, transparency and costs in cross-border payments.
"By combining Mastercard blockchain technology with our settlement network and associated network rules, we have created a solution that is safe, secure, auditable and easy to scale," says Ken Moore, executive vice-president of MasterCard Labs.
"When it comes to payments, we want to provide choice and flexibility to our partners where they are able to seamlessly use both our existing and new payment rails based on the needs and requirements of their customers."
The MasterCard blockchain technology, according to the company, will complement MasterCard's existing capabilities including virtual cards, Mastercard Send and Vocalink to support all types of cross-border, B2B payment flows - account-based, blockchain-based and card-based.
There are four key differentiators of the Mastercard blockchain - privacy, flexibility, scalability, and most importantly, the reach of the company's settlement network, notes the company.
According to Mastercard, the blockchain solution has the ability to power secure and seamless non-card payment transactions such as business-to-business payments and trade finance transactions. It also has the ability to power non-payment solutions such as proof of provenance that helps authenticate products across the supply chain.
In addition to building a new solution, the company says it has also filed for over 35 patents in blockchain and invested in Digital Currency Group, a collaborator that builds, incubates and seeds Bitcoin and blockchain technology-related companies.
Mastercard says it recently joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance to explore the possibilities of the Ethereum technology across a wide range of potential use cases, many of them well outside the scope of Mastercard's traditional payments environment.