Mastercard Chief Services Officer, Craig Vosburg stated that the acquisition will drive innovation in cybersecurity.
Mastercard Inc. has finalized a deal to acquire the cyber-defense business Recorded Future for $2.65 billion, with the intention of enhancing the security of its enormous global payments network following the completion of the transaction.
The acquisition from the private equity firm Insight Partners will significantly improve the credit card giant’s ability to use artificial intelligence to protect itself from cyber threats and fraud.
Mastercard Buys Recorded Future to Fight Cybercrime
Insight Partners acquired the majority of Recorded Future in 2019 through a cash transaction, valuing the company at more than $780 million. Insight Partners made this acquisition.
Recorded Future, a payment services company that serves over 1,900 customers in 75 countries, emphasized in its statement the growing urgency of fighting cybercrime, which is predicted to impose global costs of $9.2 trillion this year. Recorded Future’s customers are located in 75 different countries.
Craig Vosburg, the Chief Services Officer at the credit card network emphasized in a recent Bloomberg story that the alliance will accelerate innovation, enhance the creation of intelligent models, and proactively address potential cyber threats. We anticipate finalizing the transaction by the beginning of the first quarter of the following year.
Boosting Self-Custody Crypto with New Debit Card
In addition, Mastercard recently strengthened its support for cryptocurrency wallets that do not require custody by forming a partnership with Mercuryo, a Bitcoin ordinals trading platform.
Mercuryo, a European organization, provides cryptocurrency payment infrastructure. This collaboration led to the introduction of a euro-denominated debit card. This card allows users to spend their self-stored cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, at more than one hundred million businesses worldwide that are part of the credit card network.
The launch of a prototype cryptocurrency debit card with the MetaMask wallet in August 2024 marked a significant milestone in Mastercard’s strategy to connect more closely with the rapidly growing sector of digital assets.
This project followed the launch of the pilot card. Self-custody wallets is becoming increasingly popular in the bitcoin business, and this action highlights a growing trend in the industry. Self-custodial wallets give users full control over their private keys and, consequently, their cash.
Typical custodial wallets, on the other hand, entrust the security and safekeeping of digital assets to third parties such as banks or exchanges. While the discussed digital asset management paradigm promotes increased autonomy, it also directly assigns security responsibility to individual users.
Additionally, Mastercard recently partnered with ConsenSys to launch a new cryptocurrency card, MetaMask. The purpose of this card is to bridge the gap between financial transactions and digital assets.
This agreement marks a significant advancement in the integration of bitcoin into consumers’ daily spending habits.
