Mastercard has submitted a new patent for customer protection and payment operations based on blockchain technology based on a patent filing from the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), issued yesterday. The new patent filing features a new form of a blockchain-based open source approach to matching funds between blockchain and fiat accounts.
The Mastercard patent depicts the “management of the fractional blockchain” method of storing fiat money in a primary account and blockchain-based coins in a second account. The new approach would entail a “plurality of account profiles, each profile including a fiat money amount, blockchain currency amount, account identifier and address,” to uniquely authenticate user accounts for trades.
Mastercard points out that the integration of traditional payment systems with blockchain-based coins “can provide consumers and merchants with the benefits of decentralized blockchain while maintaining the security of account information and providing a strong defense against fraud and theft.”
Mastercard is heading towards adopting blockchain technology but didn’t change its position regarding decentralized cryptocurrencies
Mastercard states in the patent application that this new approach enables the evaluation of the probability of fraud or risk related to blockchain payments, since current payment methodologies, such as credit reporting data or demographics, can be supplied by conventional transactions systems.
The patent also establishes that the blockchain-based open approach can shorten the transaction times, while it secures better the user information.
In June, Mastercard had submitted another patent for a blockchain solution to quicken payments and increase their security. The financial services provider had also published a license in April to enable faster triggering of blockchain networks’ nodes.
Even though Mastercard has been progressing in adopting blockchain technology via its patent submissions, it has been increasingly critical in its position regarding cryptocurrency. In the autumn of last year, the company’s CEO described non-governmentally backed cryptocurrency as “garbage.”
