Beyond the Card: Mastercard's Blockchain Strategy

Join us as we speak with Christian Rau, Senior Vice President at Mastercard, about how one of the world's largest payment networks is embracing blockchain, stablecoins, and agentic commerce. This episode explores how Mastercard is bridging traditional payment rails with digital asset infrastructure, and what the future of safe, simple, and secure payments could look like.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Let's Talk Cardano, presented by the Cardano Foundation. In each episode, we delve deep into the transformative world of blockchain technology. Join us as we explore how blockchain is reshaping industries from finance to supply chain and talk with some of the key pioneers at the forefront of this revolution. I'm right here on Let's Talk Cardano.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

In this episode, we speak with Christian Raup from MasterCard about how one of the world's leading payment networks is integrating blockchain, stablecoins, and agentic commerce into the future of payments.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Hi, Christian. Hello. Really good to have you here. Thanks for having me. It's the second day of the summit yesterday, and day zero was super exciting. We've had tons of good insights. And I'm extremely excited about this conversation in particular because MasterCard being this extremely well-known brand, and uh it's it's it's it's known that you're dabbling in blockchain quite a bit, but seeing you here at the Cadana Summit really is quite nice. Maybe before we deep dive into all the topics that we can and will hopefully address. Who are you? Maybe you have interesting endeavors currently, projects that you want to share.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Yeah, so first, uh just about me, Christian. I've been with MasterCard in different functions for 13 years, approaching 14 years, actually, which also means I'm not digital asset native or blockchain native. I had different roles in the organization over the years. I was in business development, in product management, in general management, uh, looking after one of our European markets. And before joining MasterCard, I was uh working for uh different telecommunications and internet service provider companies. And my first job was actually in traditional banking. Yeah, the role I have in MasterCard today is looking after our digital asset, blockchain and stablecoin go to market, essentially making sure that we make sure that we don't miss the train, that we are a good partner to our existing customers, you know, traditional financial service players who would like or would expect actually to hear from MasterCard what's you know up and coming in payment. And obviously partnering with new blockchain web3 native companies to help them provide safe, simple, secure payment solutions to their consumers and businesses. That's that's essentially my role.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Nice, super interesting and timely role. You've briefly touched, or you you said you're trying to not miss the train. Yeah. I think it's a good trigger word to briefly go there. Is it already the time within the blockchain space where companies have to catch up?

SPEAKER_03 2:59

It it's difficult whether it's catch up. I would actually argue that we are still early enough. So together with our partners, we have an ability to shape the ecosystem. Because if you look at the rationale or the fundamental reason why MasterCard engaged in this space, is basically we are very, very consistent in our strategy and vision that is all about enabling safe, simple, secure payments for consumers and businesses and for merchants to receive these payments, right? We've been doing this for 50, 60 odd years. But it's important to realize that this obviously does not happen in a vacuum, right? Payment is a reflection of economic activity. Economic activity changes a lot, right? Think about digitization, the internet, mobile devices, all of these things. Which means that if you want to provide relevant, easy to consume payment services, you need to basically evolve, right? And if you if you think about payment cards, you know, uh a lot of people will still remember you have this Mech Stripe uh device that you would use at the point of sale. Then it was the chip and pin technology, which was a big step forward. Then it was NFC, I want to say 13 years back, at least in Europe, NFC started. Then it was mobile, right? Over the last couple of years, we've seen that blockchain technology is playing an important role or can is playing an increasingly important role in the space. And then as of lately, I want to say the last two, three years, backed up by regulation in Europe, Mika, recent regulation in the US, the Genius Act, the regulatory framework has been put in place. And then if you if you say the technology is there, the regulatory framework is there, and we see how bits and pieces fall into place, how we can use that technology again to live up to our own expectations of safe, simple, secure payment that adhere to the highest standards uh with respect to compliance, AML, consumer protection, so on and so forth. I would say the time is right. So I don't think we are playing catch up at this point. I would say that together with our partners, we're actually co-creating, you know, how payments can look, leveraging blockchain.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Nice way to put it. And I degree because the there is a time for each and every technology. And I believe blockchain has reached through regulation, through all the progress in the past years, an evolution or a legitimacy that it really is recognized as an institutionally ready infrastructure.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

And I know, especially in the Web3 blockchain space, regulation can be a bit of a polarizing term. But when when I speak about regulation and about regulation that has the art that aims to drive sustainable innovation and puts consumer protection at the at the forefront and aims to provide a level playing field for the market to compete and put the best solutions out there. I think this is essential. If you want to provide financial services at large to the public, I think this, again, nuanced balanced regulation with consumer interest and minor level playing field is essential. It helps everyone, it propels innovation, it drives competition, it protects consumers and businesses.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

If I may do a little experiment with you, please. I have a naive understanding of MasterCard's business model. And through that naive understanding, I'd assume where your focus is within the blockchain space. Okay. That business model abstraction is that you're connecting consumers with merchants. And you do that through providing them a network, a payment rail where these two can exchange money in a bi-directional way. And uh you are at all the supporting fronts that make that possible. Which means in the middle, we're talking a lot about infrastructure. Yeah network, identification, authentication, one to the other. You have to settle between the two banks at some point, of the merchants bank and the consumers bank. In my imagination, you could use blockchain perfectly to optimize some of the operational inefficiencies that come through a Web2 approach and the settlement delays T plus two, three, four days or something if the different countries are involved or multiple different banks in between. Did I paint a right picture?

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Yeah, and and I I would disagree that this is a naive picture. It feels very accurate. Let me just spell it out. And I think it was implicitly there. We don't issue cards. Like if you have a card and you're from Switzerland, it would come from UBS or from a Kantonal Bank or something. It's not a MasterCard. Same as if you go to a merchant, the merchant would not have a contract with us. They would have it with an acquirer. But by and large, uh, you were very accurate in the sense that we provide a global interoperable network that connects 3.8 billion consumers, 250 million uh acceptance locations, plus all the e-com space. And we essentially run a franchise that is based on technology, uh, partnerships, and rules and regulation. Rules and regulation are important because if only a fraction or the basis points of a transaction go wrong, right? And go wrong or have to be revised. Not even go wrong. Just think about you know, you buy something online, you don't want it, you need to return it. There needs to be an efficient reversal process. And obviously, wherever money is is moving, fraud is a thing. So you need to fight that fraud and you need to have also mechanisms to deal with that. So um your understanding is very correct. And um, this simplistic anatomy of a transaction would be we separate between authorization, clearing, and settlement. And it touches on things that you spoke to. So whenever you you touch your iPhone at a point of sale and says transaction approved or payment made, nothing really happened other than a payment guarantee being made. And then you run through a clearing cycle, and then you come to a settlement cycle. And settlement, as you mentioned, pretty much happen is still a very archaic process. If you think about that, we're in a world where everything pretty much feels very real time or is real time. And indeed, stable coins can play a role there. So we are at this point uh piloting stablecoin settlement with multiple partners around the world to address exactly these sort of behind the curtains, we call it legacy technologies, right? To to take advantage of uh the benefits that stable coin bring can bring, like money flowing on the weekend and so on and so forth. But there's also other elements that I think make it very interesting because today's generation, you know, they hold digital assets in whatever form, right? It can be Bitcoin, Ethereum, it can be USDC, it can be can will obviously also be fiat in a digital form, you know, in my in my bank account. And a MasterCard, we do believe not all of these assets, but some of them should be used for payment or can be used for payment if consumers choose to do so. And hence we um drive what we call crypto card programs that essentially allow consumers to spend their digital assets wherever they choose in a very safe, simple, and compliant manner. And nobody but the licensed entity that can interact with digital assets, they would have a VASP or CASP license, touches this. So think about you go into a retail shop and you have a card that it's a Bitcoin card, you know, for simplistic purposes. You tap that card, the transaction is routed to uh the issue of the card. Let's say they say, oh, there's no fiat, but there's two bitcoins. So without your doing in real time, you know, they would sell sufficient Bitcoin to unlock this 20 euro fiat, whatever your transaction was, and then they approve the transaction, you leave the shop and you take your merchandise. Nobody other than the licensed entity in this flow touches crypto. The benefit here is you can use your digital assets, you know, wherever MasterCard is accepted. That's the benefit for you. And the merchant can basically tap into the purchasing power of digital wealth without having to deal with the intricacies of crypto, right? So to your point, yes, digital assets, blockchain and stablecoin specifically play an important role on that, on that infrastructurally when it comes to making things more efficient. But we also do believe that people, if they choose again, should have the ability to spend digital assets in a safe, simple, compliant manner on our network. And again, we treat very carefully there you know, to not step away from our commitment to the standards I just spoke to. Yeah, very cool.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

I'd agree that within the Web3 space, you have these two overarching angles. On the one hand, tapping into liquidity that sits within the crypto ecosystem in the form of blockchain native tokens like Bitcoin, ADA, Ethereum, and so on. And then it's native tokens on the chain itself. But also the simple usage of all the properties of a blockchain, the permissionless aspect, the resilience of the network, tapping into the fact that it's not changeable and so on, all these classic use cases that do provide value in supply chain and in tracking and so on. Um, these are really the two major topics, and I'm I'm hearing use cases on either side. And I'm glad that you're looking into both. Because many companies in the past, it has often always been about the crypto side of things. And me personally, I'm gonna be brutally honest here, not the biggest fan of considering blockchain units as currency equivalent. I don't think that ADA, for example, Bitcoin may be a different topic, but ADA or Ethereum should be considered a unit that I spend every day. It is game theoretically the reason why blockchain works. So it's a it's a token that rewards those that maintain the blockchain. And I'm I'm paying the transaction fee to access to interact with it. But the whole speculative side of the price go up aspect, I find morally not benefiting the humanity as much as all the other aspects. And thus I'd I was never a big fan of those big crypto cards. I think that started with crypto.com. They were one of the first. Yeah, I I would agree. They were among the first, yeah. Yeah, that that did that. However, one of the one of the big things that changed in the past year is the emergence of stable coins. Yeah. And the reason why I'd rather have a stable coin under control instead of holding actual fiat. There's many tons of reasons for that. And the ability to spend my stable coins directly through MasterCard without any additional blockages is the first argument for me to consider a cryptocard over a normal bank connected Mastercard. And that potential I think is new.

SPEAKER_03 15:36

It is, and I think we see an interesting convergence in the space. In Switzerland, you would know that there's a bunch of very, you know, traditional financial institutions that allow you to hold a set of, let's say, more mainstream tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Very traditional banks allow you to do that. Then you also have um, let me call it first-generation mobile first challenger banks. Like you wouldn't know the names, you know, that came around 12, 13 years that said, you know, I want to be a current account, you know, on your mobile phone. We see that uh some of them either partner with digital native uh players to offer buy, sell, hold capabilities in crypto, or they become licensed themselves. They obtain Mika licenses. That's the second bucket. And then you you have these digital asset blockchain native companies that you just spoke to that started out with, you know, buy, sell, hold Bitcoin and Ethereum. And as per your observation, which I would agree to, they move more into providing, you know, more traditional financial services. You could almost call them fiat-like services, and without the consumer necessarily being aware, they would be running on stable coins. Having said that, we have very traditional financial service players. We have first generation fintechs that started their journey 12, 13 years back. And then we have these um, you know, the digital asset first players, uh, you just mentioned crypto.com, and there's many others, right? And I think they all almost converge in that point that subject to what their background is, they add crypto capabilities, or if crypto is their native uh background, they would add fiat-like capabilities on stable coins. And I believe that this is very interesting. And the ability for consumers to hold their assets and be able to spend them in a very frictionless, easy, simple, secure manner is intriguing. I would agree with you that quite likely things like Ethereum or Bitcoin wouldn't be things that I personally would spend every day, right? But I don't know we are not normative and it's a very sort of personal decision, and we offer optionality for people who want to do that. But if we extrapolate from how people have paid in the past, stablecoin for sure would be sort of you know a more sort of natural or you know, a top-of-mind payment payment tool. So I I agree to your observation, but again, if we can make it happen in a safe, simple, secure, compliant manner, we put it out there, and then the market will decide. Some people will say, Yeah, I love that. I want to do it, they should do that. Other people would say, no, that's not for me. And and then they do what works for them, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Yeah, 100%. You mentioned legacy systems before. Are you observing big blockages, hindrances in in the transition from one to the other or plugging one into the other? The MasterCard's network is now decades old. How does that new infra layer fit in there?

SPEAKER_03 19:07

I think we and and we we constantly invest in our network, and and we invest billions in the network, not only to add new features, but to protect the network. So investing in our network is something that comes very natural to us, but sort of taking our statement on it on a bit more or elevating it to more general level, I still feel that between fiat rails and crypto rails, there's typically this friction point, right? And again, stable coins are very uh sort of a very fit-for-purpose connecting pipe, if you will, or a joint. Still there there's this friction. And and part of our work is to make that friction as little as possible. But again, still, you know, when there's uh at these points, consumer, you know, they take fiat and they move it into another world. So they should be mindful what they are doing. They would typically, if they we call that on-ramping, right? I don't know whether that's language you would be using. I use a car to move money into a centralized exchange, into a wallet or something. So they need to authenticate themselves and everything. So that is, I would say, normal. At the same time, we see that a lot of infrastructure providers build infrastructure for the next generation of financial services that also more traditional functional players uh will use and leverage, right? I think there's plenty of examples.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Yeah. Did you see any shift on the consumer side in terms of interests?

SPEAKER_03 20:54

Oh, and that is just uh it's more a personal observation. It would quite likely be very much uh in sync with a lot of observations that people have that follow the space. I think some four or five years back, ICOs were a very big thing, and consumers wanted to get on there to earn rewards. NFTs were a very big thing. I want to say three, four years back. Stable coins are very top of mind, quite likely not actually so much for consumers because it's something I think more the professionals uh the the uh financial services industry cares about. So I think you have these, you know, you have these trends, you have these hype cycles, and yeah, but it's not something that we would typically engage in. Again, our our strategy is very much we want to enable safe, simple, secure payments, right? And and we see if there's technology, we want to look at it, we want to deploy it with the best partners, with the best consum with the best consumers. Consumer experience. And a lot of the things that are in the trends that I saw are more on the investment side of crypto rather than you know this this payment like that we typically uh lead with. So it's not something that takes up too much space in my head, honestly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Now focusing on stability and sustainability and giving in to hype is 100%.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Because people if you if you use a master card, typically you don't you don't even you don't even care whether it's a blockchain associated transaction or whether it's you know cross-border domestic transaction, whatever. You have a card that an institution gave you that you would typically you would typically trust that institution. You would trust the card if it carries the MasterCard logo, you use it, it's it's it works, right? And I think that is what we need to live up to. And at a lot of crypto events, I get that question, what about mass adoption? And I think as long as you still ask that question, it means you're not there. And I don't even think it's it's the right thing to ask the question because it means that you lead with uh with an approach that you should almost enforce something on people, right? I think a technology that is deployed in the right way with the right uh consumer experience will win hearts and minds of consumers and will see adoption and usage. So that is that is my perspective, and that's why we say we use the technology, we want to make it work in a very seamless, easy-to-use manner without watering down any of the compliance regulatory and consumer protection standards, and then that that will find an option, right? And if if people say, I am very happy with my traditional bank, I'm very happy with my first generation FinTech, that's okay, right? We put these solutions out there for people to choose, and then the market will determine what is adding value. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

I think the best use case for blockchain is the one that you can't see.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

I would agree, and that holds true for a lot of technology. I think if you if you find a way to put all the heavy lifting behind the curtain and make it feel very intuitive and easy to use for a consumer, that's when you got it right. Nobody cares in in payment, you know. Was that real time or was that, yeah, like I said, or a blockchain payment. It needs it needs to work.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

Yeah, exactly. People need to get the benefit out of it and don't care about how it works. Yeah. How many people know what happens when you send an email?

SPEAKER_03 24:51

Exactly. It's a very good example. It's a very good example. It doesn't matter. I just want to send an email.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Yeah, yeah. No. So we we we talked about the crypto payment side. Is MasterCard looking into deploying blockchain on the operational side as well?

SPEAKER_03 25:11

I think the operational side is a reasonably broad term. There's other initiatives that we pursue. We have a solution we call cryptocredential, which essentially allows you to use a alias resolution uh service while ensuring uh you know compliance in the blockchain space, right? If I uh want to send funds from a uh self-custodial wallet to a centralized exchange or vice versa, right? There are certain rules that need to be adhier to. And uh we have a solution for that um that we put out there. Because again, we have a strong track record in in providing safety, security in payment um and adjacent services. Oh, interesting. So you have crypto credentials. It's it's it's um it's a solution where we partner with a lot of industry players to basically enable this uh uh the this this service, yes. There's another solution uh that we put out there. Uh we call it the multi-token network. Essentially, we believe that you know there's tokenized bank deposit, there's stable coins, there are or will be retail CBDCs. So it there will still be a need for interoperability, right? So I will want to be, I will want to be able to send you, you know, my tokenized bank deposits to to you, so they can be you know uh stored in your ledger system, essentially. And the multi-token network essentially uh provides a framework and an environment where this this happens. So we do use that technology, and again, we're coming from that MasterCard perspective of what we've done in in TratFi of providing a global framework of interoperability for consumers, merchants, governments to interact uh very, very safely and securely. And that's the same philosophy that that informs our blockchain strategy.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

Very cool. Like to make a bit of a detour. It's probably less to do with blockchain and more to do with the current hype trend. If we are looking at agentic AI, and you've probably heard about Masumi and all these all these other players that are using blockchain as an agentic AI payment rail so that one entity can can pay another, do micropayments between those entities. Wouldn't that also be an interesting use case for MasterCard, considering not a person as the owner of an authentication device, that may it be a card or may it be a mobile phone to enable to onboard this whole digital identity ecosystem into the MasterCard network?

SPEAKER_03 28:10

100%. I think next to digital assets and blockchain and stablecoins, agentic AI. And for us, we call it agentic commerce, or that part of agentic AI that we focus on, we call it agentic commerce, is for sure the most, from my personal view, the most interesting innovation or area in the industry. We have recently published our standards on agentic commerce. So we we absolutely cater for this because we had that first generation of tokenization. So if you used Apple Pay or Google Pay, what we essentially do, and it's I'm using very simplistic language here, is uh we create a digital clone of your walking plastic card and put it on your iPhone or put it on your Android device, right? Uh and then that clone can only work in in conjunction with that device, right? And the same logic, conceptually speaking, we apply uh for agents so that an agent basically can make a payment. Of course, it's not that simplistic because the agents need to be registered with MasterCard. They will need to be able to search, you know, merchant websites, so these have to be categorized. And so there's a whole framework around it in order as to make it make agentic commerce compatible with our values. But yes, we 100% look at agentic commerce. It's an area of high priority for us. Then combining these two elements that you spoke to, this agentic commerce, which we established is very relevant to us, and combining it with stable coin payments. And then let me add to that, you didn't say it, but let me say it. If you then have agent-to-agent payments, potentially micropayments in in stable coins, do I believe that this is an area of high interest? 100% do I have now just personally clarity of mind, how that would look like in detail? No, but I think these two topics, gent e-commerce and blockchain digital asset stable coins, I feel that they're you know they're they're getting closer and closer to one another, and they will definitely be synergies and sort of very positive reciprocal effects. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Some say, or since decades we're talking about this killer use case for blockchain that we're all waiting for, whatever that may be, like the MySpace moment of the internet or something. But some consider AI to be the killer use case of blockchain. As arbitrary as that sounds, but AIs need identity. AIs need a payment rail now in the case of MasterCard that would be a competitor. But even in the case of a MasterCard payment rail, you also need to somehow authenticate and and and identify those agents that need to be registered somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 31:21

Yes, yes. And a lot of, and again, I don't want to make I don't want to make this too much of a payment deep dive, but a lot of the challenges or potential friction, as you called it, uh, you know, at the earlier part of the conversation in payment um is triggered by authentication. Because authentication proving you know that I am who I claim to be is essential in payments, right? And in Europe, you know, we have a standard of you know, it's PSD2 established how, you know, and there will be uh follow-on versions of that, it established how you need to authenticate yourself. And of course, the same concept needs to be from a philosophical point of view, needs to be adhered to when agents interact with one another and when an agent triggers a payment on my behalf, because the payments that we see today is either a merchant triggers a payment because I have a card on file. I put a card on file with, let's say, Uber, Netflix, Spotify, whatever, to pick any of these merchants, or I go into walk into a physical retailer or I check out on a website and I make a payment. So it's either the merchant requesting a payment or the consumer triggering a payment. But obviously, if an agent triggers a payment on behalf of a consumer, that authentication piece still needs to be addressed, right? So I'm fully with you. And this is where I think you know, MasterCard brings that depth of experience that that um and technology to the table to make sure that when these things happen, these things being you know, agentic commerce, that it is safe and secure because the more things get abstract, right? And the more I, as a consumer, I almost let, you know, I let things go on a longer liege, the more important it is that I trust the technology, that I trust the partners that I that I work with, both as a consumer as well as a merchant, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

You're addressing an important point which sits deep in my heart because my previous role I was very much cybersecurity focused, um protecting digital assets, private key management, and so on. How has that journey been for MasterCard when they look into blockchain in terms of cybersecurity within a blockchain environment? Since there is this instant finality, since you can't call somebody to say, oops, I typed a zero too much or something. And you've mentioned in the beginning that you're not an infrastructure person, so you you may not but probably you do have a story to share how MasterCard experienced the onboarding of blockchain into their legacy stack in terms of cybersecurity.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

I think it's more if we partner with blockchain native companies, the whole question of what we would call flow of funds. I don't know whether that is something that language that you would use. It's basically who handles fiat and who handles the crypto lag or element of a discussion. That that typically would not have been a question to that extent in a normal sort of uh 10 years back, 100% fiat transaction. So that is definitely something that we look at flow of funds, where we just check, you know, do we have that level of comfort that the partners that we work with adhere to the standards that we expect that regulators expect, you know, who handles fiat, who handles crypto. Another thing is um, you know, VASP licenses, right? We obviously look look at these on-chain risk. There's all the these on-chain risk tools where there's no equivalent really in the fiat world, right? We obviously look at these when we sort of vet the partners that we work with. So we do see the blockchain and digital asset space comes with different risk profiles, right? And again, in order as to everyday make sure that that our commitment to compliance, security, AML, KYC, consumer protection, all of these things are adhered to, we adjust our approach to make sure that you know we act in a very responsible manner in in the digital asset space too.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

One of the reasons why I asked that as a follow-up question within the Agenc Commerce conversation before was that if if agents execute payments on our behalf, they need a way to authenticate themselves in some way while I'm controlling the key that makes it possible that they authenticate. And where it's an extension to my own authentication possibilities, which I'm delegating, outsourcing, or enabling others to use as well. And if we look at the blockchain use cases of digital identities, and the Gardana Foundation has has has done an amazing job with Viridian in the past year or two. Have you heard of Viridian?

SPEAKER_03 37:00

I've heard of it, but I I wouldn't feel comfortable commenting on it in detail.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

It's um uh identity solution based um based on the Carrie stack, which has nothing to do with blockchain. Carry is a virtual legal identifier, a VLEI network. And uh certain aspects are then are then connected to blockchain. But for me, one of the key opportunities for blockchain to shine within this agent e-commerce space is the identity layer. And that can really be perfectly be perfectly mirrored on the blockchain side because of NFTs, for example, it could be and I'm not talking about the JPEG picture NFT side, but just the non-fungible token aspect, which could be an identity in the very simplest form. Meridian has has a different approach to that using actual legal identifiers and in the real world that are virtualized, but also they could live on chain as it's as as all that happens within the blockchain space is authenticating that I am me, that I'm controlling the key that can spend. And I see uh agentic agent-to-agent payments or agentic commerce, and I like that I like that phrase by the way, quite a bit. Agentic commerce. And super important piece for for that to work. But you mentioned that you're currently not looking into that.

SPEAKER_03 38:35

If I if I I'm not sure I mentioned um or uh whether I explicitly said that, but for sure, authentication in payments will it is a key element. The question to what end you go through a let's call it a normal KYC AML process with a centralized exchange, or whenever you set up an agent, or to what extent uh that data is is stored and used blockchain. I wouldn't indeed not quite likely be the technical expert to validate or to to give clear guidance on what is the best way to do it. But I wholeheartedly agree that it it needs to be done. And um, if there's a technology that can make it happen very efficiently within the frameworks as as as stipulated, that should be looked at. Yeah. But it it's definitely it's definitely something that needs to be addressed into tier two. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Apologies if I'm if it appears as if I'm trying to put words into No. It's just like I want to tread carefully because um, fully understandable. Yeah, no, I'm just also trying to understand the the involvement of Mask and Card today within the blockchain space and and how to put that all into context. Amazing. That was super insightful. If we are closing out with a bit of a projection ahead, um out of possible. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 40:06

Where where do you see us heading into it's maybe not the kind of specific, you know, clear picture that that that you hope for. But I think whatever we do, we need to look at a very simple fact. Every day today, people are born into this world that grow up 100% digital native, right? And they will, in 15 to 18 years' time, you know, they will have very very real financial services needs. And then in 20, 30 years' time, they will have even more uh complex financial services need. And they, part of these people, they will want to go into bank branch and speak to a person frequently. Others will want to do that on life-changing events, right? You know, I want to buy a house, I need a mortgage, I need a life insurance, or these kind of things. And other people say, no, I'm comfortable doing everything from my mobile device, from my you know, spatial computing, smart glasses, or whatever. So I think that is that direction of travel I have no doubt about. And I I have a clear use case in mind because I have a daughter, she's 15. She never in her life set foot in a bank, right? But she has already at 15 financial services needs, right? And I think as an industry, we'll we will need to evolve because we will need to be relevant to these people. And and these people will, just like people today, they will value user experience and security. That's essentially when it comes to financial services, people, you know, and transparency, which for me is a bit of a mixture between you know UX and security. So I think if if you if if we can agree that this is quite likely the direction of travel, then I believe that people will hold assets in different shapes and forms, whether that is stable coins, tokenized money market funds, or or you know, Bitcoin, Ethereum, or something we don't even think about today. And of course, they will consider continue to hold fiat, and they will want to be able to spend that again in a very simple, secure manner. And MasterCard and our partners will need to be there in order as to you know keep the business evolving and stay stay relevant. Will it be five, fifteen, twenty five, thirty-five percent of the people that sort of make a blockchain-related transaction uh per week or a month or whatever? I don't feel comfortable making that prediction because I think it's you know, it's it's it's very it's it's very difficult. And I would agree with your point that technology will in many aspects will move into the backfront. So that that's one thing that I believe. Another thing, and I know we didn't touch upon this a lot, but still let me mention it peer-to-peer payments and B2B payments. A lot of this is still, it feels still very, very cumbersome. It's it's it's a rather lengthy process. There's a lot of middlemen uh in the process if you know a business from Latin America wants to send funds to a European entity or someone in EMIA. And I do believe that stable coins have a right to play there. And again, will it be five, fifteen, twenty-five? I don't know. But I believe that as an industry, we together with the regulatory framework as it evolves, we will progress, right? User experiences will get better, adoption. Will increase. There will be very cool use cases that quite likely I don't think about. And again, our job is not normative in the sense of you know, you people should be doing this, merchants should be doing this. It's it's about optionality and choice, and and we put it out there, and then I'm really excited to see, you know, what resonates, what is picked up, uh, where do we need to adjust. That that's a bit my prediction um of uh where we had it. Yeah. Embrace the unknown. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because I think um yeah, making predictions is is is is very difficult because you have, and you know, um knock on wood, the effect that, for example, the pandemic had on NFC payments, for example, or e-commerce adoption was massive, right? And I don't I don't want any you know new pandemic to to happen or anything. But it's just like there's there's so many, there's so many things that can happen. There can be a a new device, it can be smart devices that that I don't have on the radar yet, it can be new technology. So I think rather than making very specific predictions, I think it's it's about having that right frame of mind, of having these strong values that we believe in, that set of technology rules, regulation, and and the partnerships and and evolving this construct uh to stay uh relevant uh for consumers and merchants. I think that's that's the right way to approach it. Beautiful way to close it.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Was an absolute delight to have this conversation. I wish you rest a good rest of the summit. I hope to see you tonight at a beer.

SPEAKER_03 45:47

Thank you, and thanks, Cardano, for having me.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 45:51

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

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