A top-ranking executive at one of the leading credit card companies in the world is weighing on what it would take for the industry to adopt blockchain technology on a mass scale.
In a new interview hosted by the Avalanche (AVAX) YouTube channel, the vice president of Mastercard Harold Bosse responds to the question of when major financial institutions will be ready to adopt crypto assets in a widespread manner by explaining the importance of current user demographics and mainstream perception of the space.
“It’s only going to happen and I think it’s going to happen a little bit sooner than later, given the situation of the crypto assets right now, because it’s about the expansion to new demographics.
We know that today the individuals that are using, consuming, sending digital assets around the world, there are specific types of demographics. They are early adopters and new adopters, they are becoming more and more democratized, but we haven’t yet made the switch towards mass market. That is going to be a very important aspect of the decision by financial institutions to move into the space.
It is related to the business, but it’s also very much related to the perception, if there are some demographics that are currently not very much interested in the digital asset itself if these demographics start to see the point, the reason why it is interesting to leverage digital assets for cross-border activities and that might pivot the perspective of the bank.”
Bosse also addresses the challenges of getting corporate higher-ups acclimated to contemporary systems and notes that the speculation surrounding crypto assets is what’s risky rather than the blockchain technology itself.
“Lack of senior management understanding. Your managers and corporates… [their] job is not about understanding blockchain, that’s not what they do. They’ve got a business to run, they’ve got people to keep employed, they’ve got margins to make.
There is a challenge about cost, speed, and scalability. Why would you spend time on these technologies when the historical technologies work fine? They do because that’s where the business is right now. Why would you move to something different given that all we hear seems to be quite risky?
Actually, we know that the blockchain itself is not risky, the technology is not the risk. Speculation is the risk.
