Mastercard Seeks Patent for Instant Blockchain Payments Processing

New patent filings from Mastercard show how the credit card giant is looking at blockchain as a possible means for easing payment settlement times.

In a patent application released last week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the company describes a blockchain-based database capable of instantaneously processing payments, guaranteeing that merchants don't need to wait days before receiving funds for their products.

Further, the filings indicate that the tech would help the firm keep an ongoing record of these transactions, verifying that a vendor was actually paid after a particular sale.

The data being stored would include the transaction amount, a guarantee of payment, confirmation of the payment and account profiles for the parties involved. These account profiles will also store each users's balance information, according to the application.

As the application details:

“There is a need for a technical solution where a payment transaction can be guaranteed in a manner that is readily verifiable by an acquiring financial institution and/or merchant, and where the guarantee can be used in conjunction with multiple types of payment instruments as well as multiple transaction types, including e-commerce transactions.”

Mastercard has repeatedly considered blockchain platforms to ease payments. Last month, the company announced it was opening up access to the blockchain tools it was developing in order to facilitate business-to-business transactions.

An earlier patent application released in September likewise focused on storing payment histories using a blockchain.

Disclosure: Mastercard is an investor in CoinDesk's parent company, Digital Currency Group.

Mastercard image via Atstock Productions / Shutterstock