Mastercard to Test Tokenized Bank Money in New UK Platform

​Mastercard plans to launch a trial platform, the Multi-Token Network (MTN), for experimenting with various forms of digital money. The MTN will start with tokenized bank deposits and will be open for testing in the U.K. this summer.

Mastercard's crypto and blockchain chief Raj Dhamodharan said the platform will invite several banks and financial firms to join, and will eventually expand to include central bank digital currencies and regulated stablecoins. Similar projects and pilots have been conducted globally with different types of tokenized cash and related applications, such as JPMorgan's internal wholesale cash token, JPM Coin.

"What powers the global economy today is regulated money in the banks. So we're starting with making tokenized bank deposits, so the unit of money in a bank account is a digital asset on the blockchain, bringing the same level of programmability to those as you find with digital currency in the crypto ecosystem," said Dhamodharan.

Mastercard aims to use tokenized bank money for the first kinds of applications and use cases that align well with Mastercard Crypto Credentials, a blockchain analytics tool launched in April, to make sure transactions follow rules like anti-money laundering (AML) regulations.