While nations around the world are taking a slow and calculated approach towards engaging with crypto, fintech giants like Mastercard and Visa are already incorporating pro-crypto steps as part of their operations. In a fresh development, Mastercard has initiated work around launching crypto-based loyalty rewards. The payments giant has reportedly decided to work with Swoo Pay, a mobile payments app focussed on emerging markets. The crypto culture, around the world, seems to be picking pace and that could be acting as a nudging factor for fintech giants like Mastercard to explore possibilities for integrating services with Web3.
Mastercard and Swoo Pay will work collectively to drive in the culture of crypto-based loyalty rewards in emerging economies – where people despite having access to Mastercard and Visa card, do not have access to Google Pay. Swoo users in countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Philippines, and Indonesia get Swoo tokens as rewards when they make payments via the app. These tokens can either be converted into other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and USD Coin or into fiat currencies.
As part of this initiative, Mastercard will serve as the ultimate backer for Swoo tokens, a Coindesk report said.
“Swoo Pay solves issues with tokenised payments for Android users, making them more accessible. Our collaboration is designed to provide additional innovative incentives for Swoo users in making everyday purchases,” the report quoted a Mastercard executive as commenting on the development.
Swoo is also looking to drive this Mastercard-powered crypto loyalty rewards initiative into areas where China-made Huawei smartphones are popular among the people. Due to sanctions from the US government, there are no Google services like Pay on these phones.
“Through Swoo’s contactless payments and crypto rewards, millions of consumers in emerging markets will be introduced to the crypto ecosystem,” a report by CoinTelegraph quoted Swoo co-CEO Filipp Shubin as saying.
Mastercard, meanwhile, has been taking several steps to experiment with cryptocurrencies. The company has already partnered with crypto exchanges including Binance, Nexo and Gemini to offer crypto-linked payment cards in some countries.
To make blockchain-based financial ecosystems secure, scalable, and interoperable — Mastercard is creating the ‘Multi-Token Network (MTN)’.