DeFi credit card will be available to Mastercard customers
Mastercard’s payment system is developing a DeFi credit card. The development involves startup Kima, which has joined Mastercard’s FinSec Innovation Lab accelerator.
Kima is a peer-to-peer protocol for transactions and money transfers. This young project has already received recognition from experts. In addition to its participation in FinSec, the startup received a grant from the Israeli organisation IIA. This organisation supports innovative projects.
The essence of cooperation
Kima is working on integrating various DeFi applications with Fiat systems. As far as FinSec is concerned, the accelerator’s activities focus on cybersecurity and strengthening fintech. In addition, the organisation wants to address one of the main challenges of decentralised finance. This is the difficulty of combining functionality with the leading financial instruments. First, integration with credit cards and bank accounts is of interest.
The current situation in the industry is as follows:
– in most cases, DeFi protocols operate in isolation from each other;
– this approach leads to a state of fragmented liquidity;
– the process of interacting with applications becomes much more complicated for users.
To solve this problem, developers want to connect traditional products and DeFi into a single ecosystem. They are creating a seamless bridge to make the products easier to use.
Benefits of the new product
The new solution will be available by the end of 2024. It is based on a payment protocol developed by Kima. Thanks to this, the transfer of funds will take place directly through the blockchain without using smart contracts.
The benefits of Kima and FinSec’s development:
– the new ecosystem will help expand the areas for DeFi;
– the infrastructure will form the basis for new integration methods;
– it will allow easy integration of credit cards and bank accounts into DeFi products;
– the product will increase the availability of innovative financial solutions to more users.
The accelerator will manage the Kima node. As a result, FinSec will become a prominent participant in the ecosystem. This approach will extend the functionality of Kima’s payment protocol. In addition, with the accelerator’s capabilities, the startup will reach a qualitatively new settlement level. The purpose of the latter is the support of various applications, among which are:
– cross-border money transactions;
– DeFi credit processes;
– cryptocurrency-based payment systems;
– gaming applications;
– electronic wallets;
– exchange activities.
According to Eitan Katz, head of Kima, the new project will help increase the demand for DeFi solutions. This area is quite a niche and is only perceived as part of Web3, but integration with traditional tools will attract new users. The collaboration between Kima and FinSec will bring the benefits of blockchain to standard instruments such as credit cards.
Mastercard, who is leading the accelerator, is also very interested in the project. It will help the company to expand the range of services offered to users significantly.
