Mastercard Head of Crypto Europe Christian Rau talks about how the company regards Crypto as a potential payment technology and sees benefits in Stablecoins.
Summary
- Mastercard has become increasingly interested in taking over cryptocurrency in his financial system, but does not quickly see a complete transformation.
- The company has no plans to create a blockchain, but the possibility is present.
In one interview With Big Whale, Mastercard’s head of Crypto Europe Christian Rau said that the company “is closely interested in crypto-assets.” The American Digital Payment Giant has gradually integrated Web3 technology into its worldwide payment network.
So far, the group has implemented disaster and off-disaster services on cards that can integrate crypto-holders crypto-assets into the payment system.
However, it does not intend to fully transform into a crypto-oriented payment system. According to Rau, Crypto is just a potential payment technology, not a revolution. Rau stated that the current strategy will give priority to ‘safe and conforming payments’. And crypto is now one of them.
“Our strategy has not changed in 50 years: enabling people to pay and companies to be paid, in a safe and conforming way,” explains Rau in a translated after Shared by the great whale journalist, Grégory Raymond.
“Crypto fits in with this logic. We try not to reinvent the system, but to enrich it,” he added.
At the moment the company has no concrete plans to build its own blockchain. But the option is not completely off the table.
“We give priority to interoperability with existing solutions. But if nobody meets our needs, we could consider it,” he said.
Moreover, Rau mentioned some of the recent partnerships of the company with crypto companies such as Metamask, Bitget, MoonPay, Kraken and more. Mastercard became the basis for crypto companies to use sellers who support card payments, allowing crypto holders to make crypto payments in offline and online stores.
Rau said that for Crypto, which is a fairly new technology for Mastercard, the implementation becomes more complex when it comes to non-right-wing portfolios.
“With Metamask we had to create an architecture where a smart contract verifies the availability of funds in real time,” he said.
How Mastercard De Stablecoin Golf views
The company recently observed the Stablecoin wave with interest. Rau regards Stablecoins as a useful technology to process transactions faster and to improve cross -border settlements. Stablecoin transaction volumes have even surpassed the volumes of Mastercard.
In 2024, the total stabile transaction volume reaches About $ 27.6 trillion surpasses the combined transaction volume of both Visa and Mastercard.
On the other hand, he believes that Stablecoins cannot fully replace the traditional financial systems. Nevertheless, the company does not consider the adoptive wave of Stablecoins as competition, but as an opportunity to expand their financial payment system.
“We consider them a settlement technology. They can improve cross -border payments or reduce exchange rate risks. But they do not replace the services we offer, such as protection in case of disputes,” said Rau.
Partnerships with Stablecoin -Mittentcirkel and payment providers such as MoonPay have enabled Mastercard to actively participate in the Stablecoin wave that sweep the whole world.
“Today we can already enable millions of people to spend their Stablecoin -Saldi on more than 150 million Mastercard Merchant locations worldwide,” the company wrote in one rack From June 2025.
