Mastercard Cloud Edge, a cloud-based connectivity solution, created by payments giant Mastercard and cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), will now enable Asia Pacific banks and fintechs to streamline the launch of payments tools as said financial institutions can now onboard onto Mastercard’s network up to four times faster.
Cloud computing will account for over $1trillion in value across the world’s top 500 companies, but in the Asia Pacific region specifically, the technology is going to be integral for the growth of fintech. In fact, according to Mordor Intelligence, it is set to drive the market to a projected value of nearly $311billion by 2029.
Fintechs worldwide are expected to grow approximately three times faster than the overall banking industry
through 2028, powered largely by emerging markets growth in Asia Pacific. To ensure fintechs worldwide have the best opportunity to grow, Mastercard has made Cloud Edge 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, Middle East and Africa.
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.
“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.”
Using Mastercard Cloud Edge
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.
