Speaker 1: Yeah, look, it's to be quite excited about this, and
Speaker 1: the market has received this really well. And the whole
Speaker 1: thing started with, you know, our own kind of looking
Speaker 1: at even some of the people and the team and
Speaker 1: now trying to kind of send money using blockchain. We
Speaker 1: are pretty blockchain native users, we would like to say,
Speaker 1: some of us on the team. Trying to send money
Speaker 1: to another person is quite conversion even today for most cases.
Speaker 2: Right this episode is brought to you by Treasure. Treasure
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Speaker 2: devices and services, visit the link in the description. Hey, folks,
Speaker 2: welcome into the Thinking Crypto podcast. I'm your host, Tony Edward,
Speaker 2: and joining me is Rog de Moojoren, who is the
Speaker 2: executive vice president of Blockchain and Digital Assets at MasterCard. Rog.
Speaker 1: Great to have you, Tony. It's great to be here
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: I am so excited to speak with you MasterCard being
Speaker 2: the payments giant that it is delving into blockchain and
Speaker 2: building some unique products and services. And I have a
Speaker 2: lot of questions for you, but before we get there,
Speaker 2: tell us a bit about yourself and your professional background.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, first of all, it's great to be here,
Speaker 1: and it's a great time to be in crypto at
Speaker 1: the moment. And I think it is also wonderful to
Speaker 1: be part of a such a celebrated brand and the
Speaker 1: company Mastercut. We have a strong history of technology based
Speaker 1: innovations in the space and look forward to kind of
Speaker 1: talking about that a little bit more about myself. I've
Speaker 1: been with the company for about fifteen years now and
Speaker 1: different roles and Mastercut is great that way in terms
Speaker 1: of building people pursuing people career in different sectors. I
Speaker 1: used to be in our Asia Pacific region for a
Speaker 1: while and yeah, I'll have a lot longer payment background
Speaker 1: and also live in the Bay Area, so I have
Speaker 1: a doublegateory startup background as well prior to all this,
Speaker 1: which is also helping us navigate this sector because this
Speaker 1: is quite dynamic and you got to you got to
Speaker 1: get into it if you will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, So I often ask people, you know, what
Speaker 2: was their first encounter with bicoin or crypto or blockchain
Speaker 2: and what was the aha moment? When did it click
Speaker 2: for you?
Speaker 1: Wow? Look, I come from a bit of a technology
Speaker 1: background and often often when new stuff comes in, whether
Speaker 1: that is a crypto or AI, you tend to kind
Speaker 1: of play around with it, and that's how you get
Speaker 1: to get into get into it first of all, first
Speaker 1: as a hobby to understand that's the best way to
Speaker 1: understand something is to try things on. So probably my
Speaker 1: earliest thing was years ago. I can't even remember. This
Speaker 1: is probably back when I was in Asia Pacific just
Speaker 1: trying to connect, just set up a wallet and connect
Speaker 1: to various blockchain zen, try to swap, try to get
Speaker 1: into it. And that's probably one of the earliest times.
Speaker 1: I think that the critical unlock is really when the
Speaker 1: transition from the bitcoin just as a as a as
Speaker 1: a currency into more of a programmable platform, when the
Speaker 1: change themselves were more gentle purpose more it becomes like
Speaker 1: an alternative compute method that can really people can build
Speaker 1: applications on top of it. That is, I think is
Speaker 1: the is an unlock where I personally saw, Wow, this
Speaker 1: has actually a lot more to it. I know, the
Speaker 1: res his history, and I'm kind of in terms of
Speaker 1: how this has opened up beyond just the core store
Speaker 1: of value the bitcoin story. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, Roger, you know, relative to other industries and asset classes,
Speaker 2: this technology and asset class is still very young. There's
Speaker 2: still billions of people who don't really recognize what it
Speaker 2: is and its implications. So I'm sure as some of
Speaker 2: the viewers and listeners are going to ask, so, what
Speaker 2: why would MasterCard want to use blockchain technology and stable coins?
Speaker 2: How would you answer to that question?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the answer to this actually almost has almost
Speaker 1: nothing to do with specifically crypto or a blockchain for
Speaker 1: that matter. If you look at what master Card does
Speaker 1: and people most of the consumers know about because they
Speaker 1: have a card and they go use it, that card
Speaker 1: represents a abstraction or the functionality of quite a bit
Speaker 1: of complexity that is behind it. You could just you know,
Speaker 1: we have about three point five billion cards and you
Speaker 1: could take that and go to any of the one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million merchant locations. You can just simply
Speaker 1: with a tap and pay, and you don't decide what currency.
Speaker 1: You may have a currency. You know, you may use
Speaker 1: a debit card, you may use even a crypto card,
Speaker 1: and the other side the merchants decide what currency that
Speaker 1: they want to get paid, and you really don't think
Speaker 1: about it. You just go tap. It simply works. You
Speaker 1: could go to any of the countries and simply work.
Speaker 1: That complexity is all abstracted away into a simple consumer experience,
Speaker 1: and that's what people think about. And so when new
Speaker 1: forms of store of value comes in in this case
Speaker 1: we are talking about crypto, whether that is a bitcoin
Speaker 1: or a ether or even stable coin, simply how do
Speaker 1: you access that value to be able to spend anywhere
Speaker 1: that you want to spend. So the way that we
Speaker 1: think about it is so, yeah, as these store of
Speaker 1: value become a more legitimate it has legal standing, a
Speaker 1: regulatory standing in a given jurisdiction, we want to make
Speaker 1: sure that the power of the network is available to
Speaker 1: this new class of values as well. It is. So
Speaker 1: it's all about coming to a very simple thing, is choice, right,
Speaker 1: can you know? People want to spend the money that
Speaker 1: they have, and we want to make sure that it's
Speaker 1: easy to do. People want to receive a specific currency
Speaker 1: they want in a given jurisdiction, we make that happen
Speaker 1: as well. So it's really about that. It's that simple.
Speaker 1: That's why we get involved in the space because we
Speaker 1: have a publication to curate and provide the best forms
Speaker 1: of currencies and optionality to all the people. Starting with
Speaker 1: you know, consumer payments, but it also kind of goes
Speaker 1: into other forms of payments like remittances and so on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh for sure. And do you envision that eventually
Speaker 2: beyond just okay, I want to spend some Bitcoin or
Speaker 2: either or whichever crypto asset, that the stable coin technology
Speaker 2: will be powering majority of payments because of the instant settlement,
Speaker 2: the transparency, and the end consumer may not even know
Speaker 2: that's happening behind the scenes. They just need to know
Speaker 2: it works.
Speaker 1: Look from a consumer person to merchant payments, that is
Speaker 1: really you know, it works incredibly well. As I was
Speaker 1: talking about, like you know, millions of consumers going to
Speaker 1: millions of merchants, and whether you're tapped to pay, whether
Speaker 1: you're in a whether in New York subway, our London
Speaker 1: tube or online one click checkout, it's all kind of
Speaker 1: very seamless. Now, some of the people behind the scenes
Speaker 1: may say, look, I have a bank account and I
Speaker 1: have a checkingcount saving account, or some people may say, look,
Speaker 1: I have this great credit card from they have a
Speaker 1: great credit card from say American Airlines credit card. It
Speaker 1: could be that, or it could be a Gemini credit
Speaker 1: card that owns bitcoin back in towards whatever that card
Speaker 1: form that you have, you could go spend at that merchant.
Speaker 1: Right now, what we've seen is that, look, we are
Speaker 1: enabling that optionality on the consumer side, like if you
Speaker 1: have a stable coin wallet, you can access it through
Speaker 1: this card and the merchants, most merchants in Western markets
Speaker 1: actually continue to prefer to get paid in local currencies,
Speaker 1: and in many markets you're required to get paid in
Speaker 1: the local currency. So that's what that's what the merchants
Speaker 1: need to get paid in. But in some markets people prefer, oh, no,
Speaker 1: can you pay me in stable coins? Like I don't,
Speaker 1: and they don't say that this is very important, right
Speaker 1: Tony merchants, let's say in Argentina, in another market, okay,
Speaker 1: they say that, look, I prefer to get paid in
Speaker 1: a stable coin, right. They don't say that, if Tony
Speaker 1: comes with the stable coin wallet, please pay me in
Speaker 1: stable coin. They actually say, look, I want to get
Speaker 1: paid in stable coint because that's my preferred way to
Speaker 1: receive no matter who shows up. So no matter which
Speaker 1: one of those cards that I talked about shows up
Speaker 1: at that merchant location, they still get to exercise their
Speaker 1: choice of getting paid in stable That's quite powerful right now,
Speaker 1: whether you know, yeah, I can stable coin move faster?
Speaker 1: We actually you know, you know, in our remitants business,
Speaker 1: we today settle even without stable coins, in real time,
Speaker 1: near real time with each ten billion plus locations around
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, in some cases stable coins can help accelerate.
Speaker 1: You know. We can talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: programmable nature of the money and how it can help.
Speaker 1: But it is part of the answer, it's not the
Speaker 1: whole answer, you see, somebody need to still stand up
Speaker 1: the whole surface.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, so yeah, that definitely makes sense. So you
Speaker 2: have that optionality for the consumer, but it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 2: have to power everything, just maybe certain corridors maybe where
Speaker 2: that can help speed up things and having the consumer
Speaker 2: have the option it. Like you said, if you're in
Speaker 2: another country, you can choose to have the stable coins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's right. So look, even in the case
Speaker 1: of cross border remittants, whereas stable coins people are talking about.
Speaker 1: The way that you think about this is that if
Speaker 1: you have a new store of value, new wallet where
Speaker 1: you choose to store things in a certain format, let's
Speaker 1: say in stable coins, that choice again is independent and
Speaker 1: somebody on that side you want to send money to,
Speaker 1: you can't tell them. Look, prease open a stable coin
Speaker 1: wallet and so that I can send money. It's kind
Speaker 1: of how absurd that looks. You want to be able
Speaker 1: to send the money based on simple email or mobile number,
Speaker 1: and the other person should be able to exercise that choice.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're a bank account person, maybe they're a telco
Speaker 1: wallet person. Maybe there is a crypto wallet, there is
Speaker 1: a cryptovallet person. On the other side, you need to
Speaker 1: be able to send the money whatever format that you have,
Speaker 1: and that's important. So again people talk about oh stable coin, Yes,
Speaker 1: it can be a critical part of that starting of
Speaker 1: the rail, the remittance flow or the end. But you
Speaker 1: need to be able to go from fiat to stable,
Speaker 1: stable to fiat if you truly want to deliver the
Speaker 1: choice thing. As you can see, this is a repeating
Speaker 1: thing between the between both use cases.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. You know you mentioned just a minute ago
Speaker 2: about programmable money and this technology allowing each to program
Speaker 2: these stable coins or different assets. Tell us about your
Speaker 2: view on that and how MasterCard may look to leverage that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, this is a this is the critical this
Speaker 1: is the this is the new feature. Right. The rest
Speaker 1: are all we talked about. How we need to be
Speaker 1: tied together. The power of the programmability comes in when
Speaker 1: you are able to first of all, move this money format.
Speaker 1: In this case, we are talking about stable coin and
Speaker 1: being able to purchase assets on the other side. You know,
Speaker 1: people the industry would call it as d VP, but
Speaker 1: we can simply call it as a swap for the
Speaker 1: for the crypto world. If you want, uh, how do
Speaker 1: you do that in a in an automated way, but
Speaker 1: in also a very highly assured way, meaning that the
Speaker 1: money moves only if the asset moves and if it
Speaker 1: both happens together or or or not. That is just
Speaker 1: one program ammable primitive. I think that's quite powerful. There
Speaker 1: are other primitives like, for example, can I can I
Speaker 1: actually hold the money for a certain purpose until you
Speaker 1: meet that condition?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: How do you? How do you meet that? That condition
Speaker 1: could be that a delivery of good somewhere, could be
Speaker 1: another real world event that is happening. All of that
Speaker 1: it allows you to express in a format that that
Speaker 1: is much more transparent way, if you will, and that
Speaker 1: I think is not just reserved to just stable coins.
Speaker 1: We feel the way that we think about this is
Speaker 1: that uh, a financial institution or a consumer or a
Speaker 1: business should be able to hold the money in the
Speaker 1: format that they prefer. Sometimes it's stable coins, sometimes it
Speaker 1: could be bank deposits. So we think that even if
Speaker 1: you are in the form of a bank deposit, the
Speaker 1: classic bank deposit, you need to be able to bring
Speaker 1: that programmability on those primitives of like the DVP are
Speaker 1: conditional release of payments. All of that work seamlessly, and
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason. We've been investing the tokenized
Speaker 1: deposit technology as well, and we have products and solutions
Speaker 1: there as well, and I think that is important. The
Speaker 1: reason for that is, like you know, we stable coins
Speaker 1: are you know, have grown tremendously and they're going to
Speaker 1: continue to grow. There's no doubt, especially with the clear
Speaker 1: regulatory clarity of the Genius and MICA and so forth.
Speaker 1: But it's also true that the fundamental economy today is
Speaker 1: continue to be driven by this fractional reserve system, which
Speaker 1: enables banks to take deposits, lend and create money supply,
Speaker 1: if you will. That drives the economy, so that format
Speaker 1: will continue to exist. I haven't checked the market cap.
Speaker 1: I think we have a few hundred billion in terms
Speaker 1: of the stable coin market cap. I think US dollar
Speaker 1: deposits of alone is fourteen fifteen trillions something like that.
Speaker 1: In terms of posits, that's just one currency. So I
Speaker 1: think it is our obligation, you know, those of us
Speaker 1: in the crypto industry that bring the benefits to the
Speaker 1: biggest money format and regulated money format that exists, which
Speaker 1: is deposits so we've been saying this for some time
Speaker 1: as well, and because we believe in that, and so
Speaker 1: it is not like one currency versus one format versus
Speaker 1: the other. As long as it has the right attributes,
Speaker 1: which is clear parameters around how the currency works, regulatory
Speaker 1: framework right, and we are able to offer that format
Speaker 1: in use cases in a way that's accessible to that
Speaker 1: consumer or a business base, then we are for it.
Speaker 1: And that's been driving our product strategy on this for
Speaker 1: quite some time.
Speaker 2: You mentioned this a Genius Act being passed into law,
Speaker 2: pretty historic, and you know it has a lot of
Speaker 2: implications means as well as US dollar. Do you envision
Speaker 2: that innovation around stable coins? Will you know, have an explosion,
Speaker 2: We're going to see new issuers and could that market
Speaker 2: hit one trillion by next year.
Speaker 1: Look, I'm not very good at in protecting crystal ball thing,
Speaker 1: and that's not what I think the trends are. The
Speaker 1: preconditions are set for people to build new use cases
Speaker 1: around it, for sure, right, and I believe those companies
Speaker 1: that offer an end to end value proposition because stable
Speaker 1: kind at the end of it is a rail to
Speaker 1: move money, right. Stable coin present in a public blockchain
Speaker 1: is a rail to move money. You build use cases
Speaker 1: when you for that segment consumer or a business segment,
Speaker 1: go put all the protections and on the simplicity and
Speaker 1: user experience with it for you to turn into an
Speaker 1: end to end use case, whether that is consumer payments,
Speaker 1: which we think that continue to cards continue to be
Speaker 1: the best way to access them, even if the format
Speaker 1: of the currency is the tables and as I was
Speaker 1: saying in the remittance is it is it is really
Speaker 1: about standing that end to end use case where people
Speaker 1: may have choice about where you want to send and received. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the future is bright on that. You've also
Speaker 1: seen other jurisdictions Tony, And you know we briefly mentioned
Speaker 1: MICA in Europe, so you can expect more stable coins
Speaker 1: that are Euro denominated to come up. Hong Kong HKMA
Speaker 1: Hong Kong Monetary Authority has a clear framework for stable
Speaker 1: coins as well. M AS in Singapore has a clear
Speaker 1: framework for stable coins as well. UAE is coming up
Speaker 1: with a similar one. So you can see that multiple currencies,
Speaker 1: not just you as dollars will will will be there
Speaker 1: and as you can see that in itself will will start.
Speaker 1: How do you get from one to another, and all
Speaker 1: those things need to be solved. It's still not those
Speaker 1: are those are in early stages. All of this would
Speaker 1: determine the kind of the trajectory that you're on. Right,
Speaker 1: So today it is it is actually in most markets
Speaker 1: to getting too from stable to feat Those markets are
Speaker 1: not as deep as fear to feel it, which is
Speaker 1: a critical infrastructure you need to unlock in order for
Speaker 1: that to get to the next level of the growth
Speaker 1: for it to be considerct kind of a normal other
Speaker 1: form of the currency. Right.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, So the envision the future payments, you have
Speaker 2: these different digital currencies in stable cooin format there they
Speaker 2: can be interoppable, they're on multiple blockchains, and well many
Speaker 2: of us are going to have digital wallets. We're headed
Speaker 2: to a more digital world. We're not going to use
Speaker 2: cash and going to have the optionality like you were
Speaker 2: saying before, maybe some of some quarters at a traditional
Speaker 2: rail summer powered by sable coins. You got digital assets
Speaker 2: in crypto. You know, all that in that respective wallet,
Speaker 2: and you know, I could send international payments from my phone,
Speaker 2: I can make a payment at Starbucks and all these
Speaker 2: things are done in that wallet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so most lot of these experiences that you're talking
Speaker 1: about happens today, right, So so you could you know,
Speaker 1: you could have your Apple wallet or a bank wallet
Speaker 1: are are or if you're an Android, there are many
Speaker 1: options there as well. People can go pay today. I
Speaker 1: think that experience is well done already and the optionality
Speaker 1: that need to be added is is those purses, those
Speaker 1: new stable coin wallets that are coming out, can be
Speaker 1: equally accessed easily. And so we have many such cads right.
Speaker 1: For example, card Gemini is the credit card that owns
Speaker 1: crypto rewards. We have a card with Crypto dot Com
Speaker 1: in the in the Middle East, crack in Europe for example.
Speaker 1: Even the metal mask and the self cut to the
Speaker 1: wallet have a master cut card attached to it. So
Speaker 1: you go through a KYC process, you can bring your funds,
Speaker 1: whatever the assets are, and the card starts working as
Speaker 1: simple as any other card. The kind of power that
Speaker 1: it puts in the phone consumer is quite quite quite significant,
Speaker 1: and that's what we are excited about to bring bridge
Speaker 1: the world of the crypto to the kind of the
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty million merchant accept on locations and growing.
Speaker 1: I should say.
Speaker 2: To those consumers, now, tell us a bit about which
Speaker 2: table coins you're using because I noticed that master Card
Speaker 2: had joined the us d G stable Coin Consortium, a
Speaker 2: global dollar network in stortium. Excuse me, are you primarily
Speaker 2: using us d G or are you kind of agnostic?
Speaker 2: We're using us DC and other stable coins as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, we support multiple stable coins in many of
Speaker 1: our use cases today consumers, not consumers, the business, the
Speaker 1: financial institutions that issue cards, or the acquirers that connect
Speaker 1: merchants can actually UH settled with through our partners in
Speaker 1: multiple stable coins. We've been supporting us DC for the
Speaker 1: longest time now and U s DP, which was which
Speaker 1: was a part of stable coin. What you saw is
Speaker 1: announcing last couple of weeks ago is that we are
Speaker 1: adding a few more coins support That includes the PayPal
Speaker 1: us D U s d G. I'll come to the
Speaker 1: USDG discussion in a bit, and five U s D
Speaker 1: as well, because Fisov announced that plans to launch one.
Speaker 1: What you're seeing there is that as long as the
Speaker 1: coin is well formed, confirmed to a certain regulatory jurisdictions
Speaker 1: where they operate in, we want to be able to
Speaker 1: make that available in our network, which is not very
Speaker 1: different from how our traditional network works. One hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty plus currencies are supported in our network, several of
Speaker 1: them as settlement as well, So it is it's natural
Speaker 1: for us to add support to that those currencies with USDG.
Speaker 1: You asked an earlier question, look or everybody wanting to
Speaker 1: launch coin. Look, I think there is an upper limit
Speaker 1: to the number of coins that would can play a
Speaker 1: useful role in driving some of these use cases. Because
Speaker 1: each look you made this point earlier, each of the
Speaker 1: stable coin, if you look at it, you got to
Speaker 1: issue them, manage them, make them available, multiple blockchain networks,
Speaker 1: list them in multiple exchanges, create deep liquidity between that
Speaker 1: pair and the other pairs. It is actually a hard work,
Speaker 1: and we think that the market would converge to a
Speaker 1: few stable coins in the world. We're not here to
Speaker 1: pick winners. What we wanted to do here really is
Speaker 1: with the USDG joining with paksos to provide the option
Speaker 1: for a financial institution or a fintech want to offer
Speaker 1: this to their consumers, they should have an easy way
Speaker 1: to do. So what we're hoping is we can provide
Speaker 1: that access, and we already it in an off ramp
Speaker 1: between the FIAT and the stable coin world, and we
Speaker 1: think we can continue to play a very effective role
Speaker 1: there in partnership with the pacsos. So we're making it
Speaker 1: easy for them to access and that's the part of it,
Speaker 1: and I think that helps people kind of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: use that coin and build scale around one or two
Speaker 1: if you will, and we'll continue to support other coins
Speaker 1: as well. As I was saying before, uh, this is
Speaker 1: this is more of an access mechanism, easy access mechanism
Speaker 1: for financial institutions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're definitely your point of you know, there's
Speaker 2: gonna be some consolidation because there's gonna be so many
Speaker 2: stable coins and issuers. But look, that's you know, that's
Speaker 2: part of markets and innovation. But there's probably just going
Speaker 2: to be a handful of winners. But I love that
Speaker 2: you guys are not picking winners and losers and you're
Speaker 2: being agnostic and supporting the respective stable coins as long
Speaker 2: as that everything is copathetic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's correct. That's correct.
Speaker 2: Now. MasterCard has a lot on its plate when it
Speaker 2: comes to crypto, and you touched on quite a few
Speaker 2: of them. I wanted to go through Crypto Credential because
Speaker 2: that one really fascinates me. Where building the technology where
Speaker 2: I can just give you, uh a let's say, like
Speaker 2: an email address sort of story to speak, or a
Speaker 2: user name, and then you can send me any form
Speaker 2: of payments.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, it's very quite excited about this, and the
Speaker 1: market has received this really well. And the whole thing
Speaker 1: started with you know, our own kind of looking at
Speaker 1: even some of the people and the team and are
Speaker 1: trying to kind of send money using blockchain. We are
Speaker 1: pretty blockchain native users, we would like to say, some
Speaker 1: of us and the team trying to send money to
Speaker 1: another person is quite conversion even today for most cases. Right,
Speaker 1: let's since we're kind of going behind the covers here
Speaker 1: a little bit. You know, what does it take you've got?
Speaker 1: If I need to send you ten dollars? I had
Speaker 1: to ask you kind of you know, Tony, can you
Speaker 1: text me or blockchain address? And you may text me.
Speaker 1: And let's say, even I know how to use it
Speaker 1: in this case, I may know, but a common consumer
Speaker 1: they have to go cut and paste to wear. Okay,
Speaker 1: I go to a wallet and I send it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I have soul, can you receive soul? I have US
Speaker 1: d C and you prefer usd G H are you
Speaker 1: on is your wallet provider connected to the right chains? Uh,
Speaker 1: there is so much complexity, right, just scratching the surface.
Speaker 1: And how do I my let's say I'm with with
Speaker 1: with a crypto wallet, and how do they know that
Speaker 1: you your wallet provider is a compliant one? Uh? Is
Speaker 1: what jurisdiction you are in? Are you a ky seed person?
Speaker 1: How do I prove that I'm actually facilitating a travel
Speaker 1: rule compliant transaction? So so much of this we said, look,
Speaker 1: it's very simple if you if you look at how
Speaker 1: the experience is in this case, let's replay the experience
Speaker 1: and I would say, you know, Tony, I would like
Speaker 1: to send ten dollars and you would basically, you know,
Speaker 1: we already know each other's mobile number or email, and
Speaker 1: I'll go plug that in my and immediately my wallet
Speaker 1: provider will have information about who's your wallet provider, what
Speaker 1: kind of assets that you can receive safely, what kind
Speaker 1: of assets, what level of ky C that you've passed,
Speaker 1: and all of that information is available behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: And so that it's a simple. The experience is so
Speaker 1: simple that you just entered the email, it immediately kind
Speaker 1: of verifies you've done right. So that is that I
Speaker 1: think is quite resonating quite well. What we've also announced
Speaker 1: the last couple of couple of weeks ago is that
Speaker 1: that kind of a simple ALIAS based experience, which is
Speaker 1: pure crypto to crypto, is already live. And then the
Speaker 1: marketplace for us with the crypto credential that you refer to.
Speaker 1: But we also have a classic remittance business that was
Speaker 1: originally fear to fear it, where now we can enable
Speaker 1: stable card wallets to send money to each other as well.
Speaker 1: So that functionality and this alias is coming together. So
Speaker 1: the beauty of that is that, look, you could start
Speaker 1: with uh. You could in this case you could have
Speaker 1: a bank account and the experience would still be the same.
Speaker 1: I will send money to this mobile number, so to speak,
Speaker 1: Tony's mobile number, and you could have made the choice
Speaker 1: to say, look, I would actually receive the money in
Speaker 1: the bank account, and you may be in let's say
Speaker 1: Philippines and I'm an US or vice versa. That kind
Speaker 1: of simple user experience is all possible now. And because
Speaker 1: we are able to move the money behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: even one leg is krypto on the other leg is
Speaker 1: fie it right uh and UH. And that comes together
Speaker 1: with the with the simple consumer experience. We're quite excited
Speaker 1: about the combining our money movement thing with this, and
Speaker 1: because that's what I think consumers wanted, that's what the
Speaker 1: businesses were actually operating opening up this remedtancy case want. Look,
Speaker 1: everyone wants to be compliant to do the right thing,
Speaker 1: but it's it's got to be easy to do so.
Speaker 1: It got to be easy to do so for the
Speaker 1: with the right tools and services, which which which is
Speaker 1: which is why we are quite excited about this combination.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I'm excited for that too because over the years,
Speaker 2: I've just seen so much friction in people trying to
Speaker 2: move funds to your point of selling, sending wallet addresses
Speaker 2: and things like that, and I feel like what you
Speaker 2: guys are building is such a critical part of the
Speaker 2: infrastructure for mass adoption.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, I think the people who are not as
Speaker 2: technical and who are scared of the long wallet addresses
Speaker 2: right and and and all those things, and just being
Speaker 2: able to make it feel like Web two so to speak,
Speaker 2: but it's Web three tech. It's all done behind the scenes, interwoppable.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, you can swap out between crypto assets, traditional currencies,
Speaker 2: and much more. And it's just easy. It just works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I don't think it is the market expectation
Speaker 1: or the consumer expectation is unreasonable here. They're simply asking that,
Speaker 1: you know, can I bring the form of the vallet
Speaker 1: of the bank account and the currency preference and you
Speaker 1: bring yours and can we just simply transact and be
Speaker 1: compliant at the same time. It's not a it's not
Speaker 1: a big expectation if you ask me, and and it's
Speaker 1: the industry's obligation to to deliver it. And we're happy
Speaker 1: to happy to help in that process.
Speaker 2: Yeh, tell us about the multi Tooken network or I
Speaker 2: don't know if you already touched on that earlier with
Speaker 2: some of the details we were discussing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, the multi Tooken network is the proposition that
Speaker 1: we came up with a few years ago where we said, look,
Speaker 1: we've got to make this programmable money work for deposits
Speaker 1: to right. And part of that is because of how
Speaker 1: how regulated that money is that is already available in
Speaker 1: abundance and it's it's is uh and in every market. Right.
Speaker 1: What was missing was, you know, how do you bring
Speaker 1: this level of immediacy of payments and you know, how
Speaker 1: fast the money moves, how fast the money settles, and
Speaker 1: the programmability to it. So so that is that's what
Speaker 1: we we've done there. We've started working with some of
Speaker 1: the largest banks, including JPM and this topic. They've they've
Speaker 1: been a tremendous innovators in the marketplace as well. They've
Speaker 1: led pretty much the whole industry from a financial institution
Speaker 1: perspective in taking steps and we're very glad to partner
Speaker 1: with them. And end of the day, what that means
Speaker 1: is that a business or a consumer with a bank
Speaker 1: account able to participate in some of the tokenized real
Speaker 1: world assets, which is a growing space. This is the
Speaker 1: next cycle of growth for for the crypto industry. I
Speaker 1: feel that's coming up in terms of the new assets
Speaker 1: coming onto the chain. So if new assets come out
Speaker 1: to the chain, the commerce will follow. And how does
Speaker 1: you need a money format that is that has that
Speaker 1: addresses everybody's needs? Uh, And that's been our our bet
Speaker 1: and and market is clearly you may have seen Bank
Speaker 1: of England recently made pretty public remarks about how they
Speaker 1: are very pro togonized deposits are You've seen some of
Speaker 1: the largest financial institutions and come out and say, there's
Speaker 1: the same thing. We think that uh oh, this this
Speaker 1: kind of format is here to stay. But the key
Speaker 1: is a buyer may want to start with the bank account, Tony.
Speaker 1: You may start to see the theme repeating itself. The
Speaker 1: seller of something may want to receive in stable coins.
Speaker 1: All that need to work. This is we that's for
Speaker 1: the industry like us to figure out how to make
Speaker 1: that simple to work. And the solution is just that
Speaker 1: if you look at a consumer or the business experience
Speaker 1: of how multi tooken network, its simply you connect to
Speaker 1: your bank account to it, and you can go to
Speaker 1: any of the tokenized asset marketplaces and you buy it
Speaker 1: just like anything else that you buy. But in this case,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, you know, programmable money is created, a
Speaker 1: settlement is happening. This is all bit of inside the
Speaker 1: system and in terms of how it works. But the
Speaker 1: idea is to make it very very simple from end
Speaker 1: user perspective, no matter the kind of format of the
Speaker 1: money you have.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, you mentioned in partnering with JP Morgan, there's
Speaker 2: this technology allow these different institutions MasterCard and banks and
Speaker 2: much more to have a more trusted partnership. Obviously, there's
Speaker 2: been partnerships set up. Historically, you look at the Swift
Speaker 2: system and the movement of money and the messaging system.
Speaker 2: But with blockchain, I can trust these different intermediaries and
Speaker 2: different folks much better. It's all real time, it's all transparent.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Look, it's the way that the short answer
Speaker 1: to your question is the block Does blockchain help make
Speaker 1: this possible more easily? Absolutely yes, but it reminds what
Speaker 1: is also true is that you got to have a
Speaker 1: common interoperable standards in terms of how these things are
Speaker 1: set up, and you really need to know that, Okay,
Speaker 1: the other person, the person with the other side of
Speaker 1: the wallet, or the buyer or the seller in this case,
Speaker 1: who's the person, what KYC levels have gone through, how
Speaker 1: do you send money to them, and how does it
Speaker 1: get settled. All of that interoperability need to be set
Speaker 1: up by some third party. Having provided interoperable solutions between
Speaker 1: financial institutions for consumers and merchants for decades, and we
Speaker 1: think we have a role to play. So if there's,
Speaker 1: for example, in the case the JPM example that you
Speaker 1: gave the other bank, if you send a tokenized deposit
Speaker 1: from one bank to another bank, somebody need to make
Speaker 1: sure that that can be settled. Somebody need to make
Speaker 1: sure that it is going to the right person, and
Speaker 1: it is the standards of how one token interprets with other.
Speaker 1: We think we have a role to play as well.
Speaker 1: So it's really, yes, it's decentralized blockchain technology, but at
Speaker 1: the same time it requires people, people kind of setting
Speaker 1: the standards. It's not very different from how Internet has evolved, Tony.
Speaker 1: If you think about it right, Internet is a decentralized network.
Speaker 1: Almost all the companies that are built businesses on top
Speaker 1: of them is using that as an infrastructure to build
Speaker 1: solutions on top that kind of that they couldn't do before.
Speaker 1: But they're all centralized companies. I think what you're seeing
Speaker 1: here is the same thing play out right. You know,
Speaker 1: some of the largest exchanges are our corporations, right, so
Speaker 1: providing solutions and there is and they've been able to
Speaker 1: build scale examples like coin based in crypto, dot common Song.
Speaker 1: So they're able to build scale because they are able
Speaker 1: to organize around use the technology, but simplify it to
Speaker 1: make it accessible for everyone.
Speaker 2: Do you believe in order to set up that standard
Speaker 2: for interoperability, these the banks, some of the other trade
Speaker 2: FI institutions and some of the native crypto companies need
Speaker 2: to form some sort of association developer standard. The government
Speaker 2: also has a buy in because payments will probably have
Speaker 2: to go in and out the government in these formats,
Speaker 2: and that's kind of how it gets going.
Speaker 1: You see that already happening, right, So the so there
Speaker 1: are a lot of standards emerging and we're helping. For example,
Speaker 1: crypto credential is we are offering that as a framework
Speaker 1: for how use case that we used in the crypto
Speaker 1: credential example is the remittance use case. But that framework
Speaker 1: actually applies throughout. It could be a B to B payment.
Speaker 1: The obligations on the buyers and seller side different in
Speaker 1: that case compared to a classic or remittance transaction. The
Speaker 1: rules may be different, the participation requirements may be different,
Speaker 1: the regulations may be different, but that framework applies, and
Speaker 1: we think that's a scalable approach to opening up other
Speaker 1: use cases on chain as well. In fact, our multi
Speaker 1: Tooken network we use a motion of that technology for
Speaker 1: enabling buyers and sellers. Right. Yeah, standardization is is uh is.
Speaker 1: I think interoperability is quite important for this to scale. Look,
Speaker 1: you're going to see multiple coins come up, right, You're
Speaker 1: going to see multiple form of currencies come up, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it need to. You can't expect this to kind of
Speaker 1: self regulate, if you will, in terms of how this
Speaker 1: interoperability works. You need somebody to kind of stand up
Speaker 1: a service that make sure that it indeed happens under
Speaker 1: a common approach and if it, if it touches consumers
Speaker 1: user experience, how do you standardize that? That's quite important too.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I'm curious as to which blockchains you're building on.
Speaker 2: I think you touched on some of it. Obviously you're
Speaker 2: agnostic when it comes to stable coins, but you know
Speaker 2: as far as your systems, which blockchains are primarily powering it.
Speaker 2: I think I read Onto and maybe Ethereum and things
Speaker 2: like that. Maybe you can give some clarity there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we've started out in earliest days. EBM compatible
Speaker 1: chain is how we started because that kind of provides
Speaker 1: the maximum scale. Some are you know, obviously the main net,
Speaker 1: but also the altos and on side chains and so
Speaker 1: on that gives compatibility. We are, again here very agnostic
Speaker 1: where we we will go wherever the commerce activity happens, right,
Speaker 1: and in some ways this multiple chains are are, makes
Speaker 1: makes transactions a bit more harder to make it work
Speaker 1: because if you could have money in one chain the
Speaker 1: asset and another chain, and again you know, somebody need
Speaker 1: to provide the assurance that the transaction will go through.
Speaker 1: That's part of what we do. Uh. And yeah, we
Speaker 1: are again chain agnostic. Will go where the assets and
Speaker 1: assets are. And the reason we go where the assets
Speaker 1: are is because that's where the commerce happens and that's
Speaker 1: where the need for a payment experience need to be there. Uh.
Speaker 1: And be it open to supporting all chains in the
Speaker 1: fact that we work with the number of them at
Speaker 1: the moment, some of them, I should say, it's there
Speaker 1: are some, especially in the institutional US cases. You will
Speaker 1: also find some chains that are private and are semi
Speaker 1: public or permissioned, whatever the grade of openness that you
Speaker 1: want to you want to put a term to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, speaking of permission and public blockchains, do you
Speaker 2: think we're going to see a mix of that. Let's say,
Speaker 2: like you and the folks in Massacard may have certain transactions,
Speaker 2: certain things you want on a permission blockchain, but some
Speaker 2: on the public. Same thing for JP Morgan, these banks,
Speaker 2: right because there or you use the public and you
Speaker 2: have ZK or is your knowledge proofs as part of
Speaker 2: a way to hide the information.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I think this privacy is going to be
Speaker 1: quite important. There are certain classive transactions that are kind
Speaker 1: of net transactions. Maybe it's okay to go public in
Speaker 1: the public chain. And I think now the safety soundness,
Speaker 1: as the people in the industry would say, is coming
Speaker 1: up and getting better in the public chains, and they're
Speaker 1: becoming more resilient, and there's a healthy competition happening, which
Speaker 1: is great. But I think there would be a class
Speaker 1: of transactions that would maybe look end of the day.
Speaker 1: Why this public private chain debate comes in is very simple, right.
Speaker 1: It's all about do you have all the people who
Speaker 1: need it in their ecosystem participating in that chain. If not,
Speaker 1: there is an efficiency created. So there are certain ecosystems
Speaker 1: where institutions can come together and say, for this class
Speaker 1: of transactions, we would rather keep it. We'd still want
Speaker 1: it programmable, we still want it interoperable, we still want
Speaker 1: it kind of sufficiently decentralized so that we can all
Speaker 1: use it as a common infrastructure. But I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: feel that unless you have a b to b agreement
Speaker 1: between two institutions. There is no reason to put this
Speaker 1: in the public chain. That would be a certain class.
Speaker 1: But I I think I'm a big believer, uh in
Speaker 1: in the public chains. The reason for this is that
Speaker 1: that's where the open innovation happens. Anybody could go build
Speaker 1: an app and any any currency provider in a e
Speaker 1: r C twenty using the e v M example, the
Speaker 1: standard or the derivatives that are quite a few derivatives
Speaker 1: on the on, the on the on that as well,
Speaker 1: UH provide the programability. What is programmability is being able
Speaker 1: to deal with this multiple currencies in a simple way.
Speaker 1: And an application or a smart contract in that case
Speaker 1: is what I call us. An app can take advantage
Speaker 1: of this currency formats. And I think that that kind
Speaker 1: of lego block like building is essential to essential to
Speaker 1: building scale and so therefore public change are here to
Speaker 1: stay and I think I think that would continue to
Speaker 1: be the primary hotbit for innovation and the space, and
Speaker 1: we're coming to do providing solutions there.
Speaker 2: I don't know if this makes sense and if it's
Speaker 2: a question you can answer, because it just came to mind,
Speaker 2: and it's maybe a bit less feel from what you
Speaker 2: guys are doing. Obviously you're dealing with consumers and enabling
Speaker 2: better payments and different options. But also with this technology
Speaker 2: of blockchain, I feel like eventually our data, like my
Speaker 2: information can be on the blockchain, encrypted and I can
Speaker 2: feel free to release it to different brands and companies
Speaker 2: like MasterCard, right, and maybe this will help prevent data
Speaker 2: breaches and you know things we've experienced over the past
Speaker 2: few decades. Do you think it makes sense eventually that
Speaker 2: our information will be on the blockchain and tight in
Speaker 2: with our payments and digital identity.
Speaker 1: So digital identity, just taking on that first, I think
Speaker 1: it is the blockchain can potentially play a big role
Speaker 1: in this. For us. We've taken the practical approach of
Speaker 1: trying to because identity is a very very loaded topic, right.
Speaker 1: It often it comes because a government gives you an
Speaker 1: identity and they are the primary issue of the identity
Speaker 1: in most jurisdiction. So we think all the regulated activity
Speaker 1: need to somehow tie So therefore the KYC process need
Speaker 1: to be tied to that government. ID what we preferred,
Speaker 1: at least the way that we've approached in crypto credential
Speaker 1: is that I would rather focus on use cases that
Speaker 1: this identity or this wallet is enabled for and if
Speaker 1: you've gone through the sufficient checks or the KOYC process
Speaker 1: by somebody who has the obligation to do the KOYC
Speaker 1: for you can complete that's quite important, and they have
Speaker 1: an economic reason to do so, because the issue with
Speaker 1: the kind of the notions of self sovereign identity and
Speaker 1: so on is that it lacks kind of the overall
Speaker 1: commercial incentive and tie back to that government ID, which
Speaker 1: is essential for corporations who regulated in the jurisdiction to
Speaker 1: provide services to you. So we rather kind of take
Speaker 1: the approach. It's a bit nuanceers, but what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say is that we'd rather take the approach of saying, look,
Speaker 1: in order for you to send a remittance transaction in
Speaker 1: this jurisdiction, here are the KYC requirements. Here are the
Speaker 1: travel rule requirements. And by the way, this company could
Speaker 1: be an exchange, could be a bank has taken on
Speaker 1: the obligation to KYCU to meet that obligation, and we
Speaker 1: will Crypto Credential will provide a proof of that on
Speaker 1: chain that Tony has gone through this in US according
Speaker 1: to these requirements. By this vallet provider and they stand
Speaker 1: behind Tony. Now Tony can go send money and this person,
Speaker 1: this banker who did the KYC, stands behind that transaction.
Speaker 1: So this is a more a use case focused view
Speaker 1: of the identity, which is a very practical way that
Speaker 1: we're moving forward. Not opposed to this evolving to some
Speaker 1: UH an identity kind of a pure form of an identity,
Speaker 1: but that that remains to be seen. We've taken the
Speaker 1: practical approach of, you know, what activity you want to
Speaker 1: enable with that identity, who stands behind that that that
Speaker 1: that that that identity for that use case in order
Speaker 1: to enable. So I think that's that's the practical approach
Speaker 1: that we've taken, and it seemed to resonate in the
Speaker 1: market because people are trying to do the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that definitely makes sense. You know, we touched
Speaker 2: on the Genius Act and what the implications that for
Speaker 2: that is will have for the stable cooin market and
Speaker 2: ability ability to use stable coins. But we have the
Speaker 2: Clarity Act, which is the market structure bill UH White
Speaker 2: House scriptos are David sax That's can be voted on
Speaker 2: late September or early October in the Senate and then
Speaker 2: possibly be signed into law. What implications is a have
Speaker 2: free master Card as a business in dealing with different
Speaker 2: crypto assets? Because that bill, will you give some clarity
Speaker 2: on security? Not security kind of the swim lanes essentially.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So look, the details are still being worked through.
Speaker 1: It remains to be seen. But from our perspective, today
Speaker 1: consumers can buy and sell crypto assets using our cards
Speaker 1: and many many exchanges where they accept master Card, which
Speaker 1: we hope to continue to support make it easy for
Speaker 1: consumers to exercise their choice. There. That is the primary
Speaker 1: wave that we will engage with other assets, non payment
Speaker 1: like currencies, but assets. People can buy their bitcoin if
Speaker 1: you will today and we hope that that will continue.
Speaker 1: But the rest of the nuances of the various things,
Speaker 1: we have to see what the implications are, and we
Speaker 1: are focused on making sure that the simple payment experience
Speaker 1: is enabled for all those conscers, rumors and continue to be.
Speaker 1: There is our primary focus there.
Speaker 2: Roger, I wish we had another hour, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: We come up in time, and I got some wrap
Speaker 2: up questions here for you. Uh, First, if you could
Speaker 2: create your own metaverse, what would the theme be?
Speaker 1: Wow? Look, I I yeah, this is a This is
Speaker 1: a tough one. And look, we've been we've experimented some
Speaker 1: early on about how our brand can engage with with
Speaker 1: with the metaverse and as people come and visit our
Speaker 1: brand experience, and we've seen some early engagement there. But
Speaker 1: I think this as a format is I think we
Speaker 1: need to put all the brands need to put more
Speaker 1: thought into it is and what is something that unique
Speaker 1: experience that you can provide there that is distinct from
Speaker 1: the real world experience. So we have some lessons learned
Speaker 1: from that and we look to re engage the market
Speaker 1: as as this thing evolves, but it needs to end
Speaker 1: of the day, I think it needs to provide something really.
Speaker 2: Unique, absolutely rapid fire questions.
Speaker 1: Favorite food, Favorite food, Yeah, seafood is the favorite food
Speaker 1: any time of the day.
Speaker 2: Favorite musician or band.
Speaker 1: Look, I come from uh South India, So there's a
Speaker 1: famous musician called Raja. There's has a lot of tumbel
Speaker 1: sounds and that I keep going back to those whatever
Speaker 1: you grew up with it right, sorry, whatever you grew
Speaker 1: up with in your yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you haven't a special affinity, special place in your heart, right,
Speaker 2: that's right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Favorite movie? Wow, I'll say the favorite genre. I
Speaker 1: would say, uh, a lot of this. Uh, the movies
Speaker 1: that tie the historical history to to life and many
Speaker 1: movies that are taken with the historical fiction in mind.
Speaker 1: Is the genre that I keep going to. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Favorite book.
Speaker 1: Again, I would I would go into a lot of fiction,
Speaker 1: historical fiction. That's the That's the genre I'll keep going to.
Speaker 2: And when you're not working a MasterCard, what are you
Speaker 2: doing for fun?
Speaker 1: Oh? Look, I love I live in the Bay Area,
Speaker 1: so running and biking is his favorite. And uh, we
Speaker 1: hike as a family as well, and we are we are.
Speaker 1: We recently hiked have this base camp, which we are
Speaker 1: quite quite excited about, and I hope to continue to
Speaker 1: go onto other other other hiking journeys with the area.
Speaker 1: It's very easy to get into the trails. You should
Speaker 1: when you visit here next time. We should should take
Speaker 1: a high.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Roger, absolute pleasure. I love what MasterCard is doing
Speaker 2: with blockchain and crypto and stable coins, and I love
Speaker 2: the crypto credential because I feel like that's just a
Speaker 2: major pillar that's needed for adoption. And I would love
Speaker 2: to have you back on in future. But thank you
Speaker 2: so much for joining me.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, it's been a great discussion
Speaker 1: and look forward to seeing you in real life at
Speaker 1: some point.