Mastercard announced that Asia Pacific banks and fintechs can onboard to its network up to four times faster and streamline the launch of payment tools via Mastercard Cloud Edge, its cloud-based connectivity solution, offered in collaboration with cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN).
Fintechs worldwide are expected to grow approximately three times faster than the overall banking industry through 2028, driven largely by the growth of emerging markets in the Asia Pacific. This growth is further accelerated by cloud computing and is expected to account for over $1 trillion in value across the world’s top 500 companies. In Asia Pacific, cloud computing is integral for fintech growth and is set to drive the market to a projected value of nearly $311 billion by 2029
“With Cloud Edge, Mastercard brings pioneering innovations in cloud and payments to Asia Pacific banks, financial institutions, and cloud-native organisations – meeting forward-thinking customers where they want to be,” said Sandeep Malhotra, executive vice president, Core Payments, Asia Pacific, Mastercard. “Cloud Edge reinforces Mastercard’s commitment to resiliency, redundancy, and security while offering customers cost efficiency as well as greater choice, speed, and flexibility. For instance, with cloud computing, fintechs can serve customers easily during demand spikes like national holidays or sales events without needing more physical infrastructure.”
As an additional onboarding option, Mastercard Cloud Edge provides customers, including issuers, acquirers, network enablement partners, and payment processors, with:
- Seamless, private connectivity to Mastercard, powered by the speed and scale of the cloud across Asia Pacific, so customers are not tied to a single IT infrastructure or on-premises solutions.
- Cloud Edge accelerates time to market and ensures regulatory compliance with local data storage and processing requirements so customers can develop fintech solutions more quickly.
- Lower capital expenditure and maintenance costs by avoiding physical data center overheads.
- Direct access to modern payment technology, such as Transaction APIs built on ISO 20022-standardised payloads.
For example, Episode Six, a global provider of enterprise-grade ledger and cards infrastructure, is using Cloud Edge to assist banks, fintechs, and payments organisations in Asia Pacific as they design and launch leading digital payment propositions like credit and B2B payments.
“All of Episode Six’s bank-grade technology was created specifically for the cloud, and as such, we understand how important infrastructure is for partners to scale with greater security now and in the future,” said John Mitchell, Co-Founder and CEO, Episode Six. “We are excited to collaborate with Mastercard on Cloud Edge so that we can reduce time to market for their clients, while ensuring security, backup, and protection by encrypting and storing data in the cloud.”
“The AWS Regions across Asia Pacific offer Mastercard extensive connectivity and secure cloud services. Together with Mastercard’s global footprint, this provides organisations in the region with payment network access at low latency, ensuring seamless operations as well as compliance with regional data residency regulations,” said Scott Mullins, Managing Director, Financial Services, AWS.
Mastercard Cloud Edge is available in Asia Pacific markets (including India, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, Thailand), the United States, Canada, and parts of Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Africa.
