Mastercard, one of the largest payment companies in the world, announced its new initiative called Multi-Token Network (MTN).
The startup will start by researching tokenized bank deposits and set up a testing environment in the UK this summer.
Raj Dhamodharan, head of crypto and blockchain at Mastercard, said that some banks and financial institutions have been invited to participate in the test and that the MTN initiative will continue to cover central bank digital currencies and regulated stablecoins when the time comes.
Dhamodharan stated the following in the continuation of his statements:
“It is regulated money in banks that powers the global economy today.
That's why we're starting to make tokenized bank deposits so that the currency in a bank account becomes a digital asset on the blockchain and we bring to them the same level of programmability you find in digital currency in the crypto ecosystem.
Let's say a UK bank has a tokenized form of deposit; and let's say another bank in Singapore also has a tokenized form of deposit.
With our new venture, these can be exchanged. This is called cross-border transfer of value. Normally you'll find that there are a lot of problems with being able to do this quickly and flexibly when exchanging them with each other.”
Beginning this summer, the beta version of MTN will be available in the UK and will serve as a testbed for financial institutions, fintechs and central banks to develop live pilots and use cases.
*Not investment advice.