Mastercard Looks to Make Buying Crypto Safer With Risk Assessment Tool

Payments giant Mastercard (MA) is introducing a service that allows issuers to assess the risk profile of cryptocurrency exchanges with the aim of making crypto buying more secure.

"Crypto Secure" will incorporate the insights and technology of CipherTrace, a blockchain security firm that Mastercard acquired last year, to help card issuers assess the risk profile of crypto exchanges, according to an announcement Tuesday.

This could make the process of buying crypto easier for users because it will mean card issuers do not have to apply a blanket approach to approving or declining transactions.

Crypto Secure will present issuers with a dashboard that identifies exchanges, measures transaction approval and decline rates and provides a benchmark rating for comparison to a peer group of financial institutions.

The new service is Mastercard's latest foray into the crypto world, which have been gathering pace over the last few years. In October it partnered with digital asset platform Bakkt to allow U.S. merchants and banks to build crypto into their offerings through custodial wallets powered by Bakkt and crypto debit and credit cards.

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