Mastercard, the 55-years old financial services provider, has earned the reputation of a crypto-friendly company in recent years. In a fresh development, Mastercard has launched a new tool called ‘Crypto Secure’ that is intended to help banks and financial institutions detect as well as prevent fraudulent activities associated with virtual digital assets. The tool is based on sophisticated Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms that will be utilised to identify potential crypto-related scams. The development was confirmed by Ajay Bhalla – the President of Cyber and Intelligence Business at Mastercard.

To support this initiative, Mastercard has partnered with CipherTrace. The blockchain startup will be providing the infrastructure for rolling-out the tool.

“The idea is that the kind of trust we provide for digital commerce transactions, we want to be able to provide the same kind of trust to digital asset transactions for consumers, banks, and merchants. I think you’ve got to take the longer view that this is a big marketplace now and evolving and is probably going to be much, much bigger in the future,” Bhalla said in an official blogpost.

Crypto Secure combines insights and technology from CipherTrace with proprietary information to help card issuers stay compliant with the laws around digital assets.

The tool will allow the banks to better assess the risk profile of crypto exchanges or other providers as well.

“Crypto Secure is the latest step in Mastercard’s broader digital assets strategy, which helps bridge the gap between traditional finance and the world of crypto, and enables individuals to seamlessly spend funds from their crypto accounts in everyday transactions,” Mastercard noted in its post.

In recent times, Mastercard has taken several steps favourable in promoting crypto and Web3 services.

Last month, Mastercard announced the launch of a new category of debit cards that will come with the option to be customisable with non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

In October last year, Mastercard entered into a deal with crypto-wallet platform Bakkt to allow merchants, fintech firms, and banks to accept and extend a broad set of solutions and services involving cryptocurrencies.