Mastercard announced some new areas outside of its core
credit card business. These include blockchain technology applied to food and
biometric data for health. The announcement was recently made at the Money
20/20 conference in Las Vegas, UNITED States. He reported it on October 30,
Business Insider.
According
to this publication, through acquisitions, partnerships and deployments of
existing technologies, Mastercard is entering new ecosystems. Jess Turner,
Executive Vice President of Products and Innovation at Mastercard, commented,
"We're adding different use cases that aren't payment-related, we're
leveraging the infrastructure we have and we're entering new industries".
Business
Insider also recalled a meeting of the investor community held in September, at
which Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga said, "I think we were basically a credit
and debit card processor. That's completely changed. And I think we're on a journey that has another
long-term pace-2.
A
blockchain solution in the field of food
In this
scenario, the article bearing Shannen Balogh's signature named
"Provenance", a Mastercard blockchain solution that aims to bring
transparency to the food supply chain. "In partnership with
Envisible, a company that allows visibility into food systems, Mastercard will
drive a blockchain system called Wholechain, which will provide supermarkets
with the ability to trace the origin of the seafood they store. Balogh
detailed.
It is
estimated that by 2020 Provenance will allow shoppers at the Food City pilot
store to scan seafood packages to see the food journey, from the moment it is
caught until it arrives at the store.
"It
will allow the store to show consumers where that food comes from", Turner
said. Thus, provenance will give stores and their buyers an idea - for
example - of whether a product is organic, or whether it was produced in an
environmentally sustainable way. Technology could also help identify supply
chain problems.
With the
launch of the pilot, Provenance will be used to track prawns, salmon and other
food from the sea, although Mastercard says it could also be applied to other
products. Turner said: "It could be made for other foodstuffs, for
high-value items, for pharmaceuticals, the list goes on and on".
Retail grocery shopping
Cointelegraph,
reported on October 28, that Topco Associates, the largest U.S. retail food
shopping organization, will test Mastercard's blockchain technology in its
transactions. This article noted that Topco will test a traceability
platform developed by logistics company Envisible. "The Wholechain platform is based on
Mastercard's Provenance solution, based on blockchain", the information
highlighted. Topco will use the platform to track the provenance of fish
products, meat and products.
Health and biometric data
Another
new initiative is Mastercard Healthcare Solutions, which could bring together
existing machine learning, artificial intelligence, and biometriccapability
capabilities. "Using Mastercard's Test and Learn technology, health
systems can use a patient's payment history to predict patient billing patterns
and determine payment methods", Balogh wrote.
"It
will allow providers a better way to bill that user", Turner stressed.
SOURCE: Cointelegraph
