In a press release, the company announced today that it will first work on business-to-business (B2B) transactions with technology as part of a tender to "address speed, transparency and costs in cross-border payments".
In October 2016, Mastercard demonstrated its work on the blockchain with systems intended for smart contracts and payment settlement processes, as previously reported by CoinDesk.
Now the company is encouraging other firms to begin settling transactions through its blockchain APIs, which, it said, can alleviate some of the frictions that arise during cross-border payments processes.
The company said it intends to combine its blockchain APIs with other services to allow partners to develop their own use cases. Its website also states that partners can create unique types of transactions using the primary API.
Mastercard also highlighted its efforts to find intellectual property rights around its uses of technologies, and work with the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance on precedents "beyond the traditional Mastercard’s payment range."
In one of the recently issued patent applications, the company indicated that it was looking into a unified payment settlement system that can use a blockchain as a vehicle for B2B payments.
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