A patent application placed by MasterCard and posted by the US Government on the Patent and Trademark office's website is drawing some attention for how heavily MasterCard is adopting blockchain technology.
In fact, the word "blockchain" appears 101 times in the application.
The "abstract" summary of the patent reads as follows...
A method for processing a guaranteed electronic transaction, includes: storing account profile, each include an account number and balance; receiving a transaction message from an acquiring financial institution via a payment network, the message including a specific account number, transaction amount, and payment guarantee data; identifying a specific account profile that includes the specific account number; deducting the transaction amount from the account balance in the specific account profile; generating a record of payment guarantee that includes the transaction amount and data associated with the payment guarantee data; generating a return message including a response code indicating transaction approval and data associated with the generated record; transmitting the generated record to a computing system via a communication network; and transmitting the generated return message to the acquiring financial institution via the payment network.
All 3 of the big players in the credit card industry are now diving into blockchain tech.
Visa is using Chain's blockchain code for its latest pilot, looking towards using blockchain for international payments, and just over a week ago we covered American express announcing a partnership with Ripple.
MasterCard's full patent application can be viewed here.
Author: Adam Lee
Asia News Desk
