Mastercard intensifies its partnerships with Chainlink and Fiserv to facilitate on-chain crypto purchases and boost stablecoin adoption.
Mastercard has teamed up with Chainlink, a decentralized blockchain oracle network, to fuel the Swapper Finance platform that enables crypto token purchases using ordinary credit cards. The payment network provider also partnered with the global fintech and payments company Fiserv to integrate its FIUSD stablecoin across Mastercard products and services.
The Swapper Finance platform allows users to buy crypto directly from decentralized exchanges (DEXs) like Uniswap using any of the 3.5 billion Mastercard global card supply. This move is one of the first large-scale integrations of a major payments network with DeFi infrastructure. The partners’ main aim is to make on-chain crypto purchases as seamless as using a traditional payment card, therefore, expanding digital asset potential for mainstream adoption.
On the tech part, Swapper Finance is powered by XSwap, a Chainlink-based DEX, and uses Chainlink’s data and interoperability standards. The platform has also established partnerships with infrastructure providers zerohash and Shift4 for compliance, custody, fiat-to-crypto conversion, and card processing. The combination of all these capabilities helps the new system provide real-time, secure token purchases via Mastercard’s global network. It is much simpler and more convenient than the traditional use of dedicated crypto wallets as fiat on-ramps are integrated directly into DEXs. The experience happens entirely on-chain but in a frictionless and regulated manner that billions of Mastercard cardholders are used to when dealing with their daily purchases.
Besides developing a convenient fiat-to-crypto payment ecosystem, Mastercard also dedicated its efforts to the expansion of stablecoin use cases. Through its collaboration with Fiserv, FIUSD, a programmable, blockchain-based token, will be integrated into Mastercard’s vast network. It would enable consumers and businesses to use these stablecoins at over 150 million merchants worldwide, ushering in a new phase of digital asset adoption.
This initiative tackles some of the real-world friction points plaguing digital finance. It makes fiat-to-stablecoin transitions (on/off-ramping) seamless so that merchants can receive their settlement in FIUSD regardless of how they’re paid. Meanwhile, banks will be connected to this system via Mastercard’s Multi-Token Network (MTN) using Fiserv’s Finxact-powered Digital Asset Platform. The partnership will also power stablecoin-linked cards so that end users can spend FIUSD globally with Mastercard, choosing between credit, debit, or stablecoin balances via Mastercard One Credential.
