Global payment processing heavyweight Mastercard is reportedly widening the scope of its payment network, to cover non-fungible token (NFT) markets and Web3.

Specifically, the financial service provider reportedly revealed its ongoing efforts invested in widening the scope of its payment networks to cover NFTs throughout 2021. 

The company has reportedly teamed up with a variety of top-tier NFT marketplaces to enable 2.9 billion cardholders to make NFT purchases in a direct manner, without the necessity of purchasing crypto first.

At the moment, users are reportedly required to have crypto all ready to bid on and purchase NFTs. Nevertheless, this freshly formed Mastercard alliance will make it possible for billions of cardholders to bypass the process of buying and transferring crypto to NFT marketplaces.

“These integrations are designed to make crypto more accessible and help the NFT ecosystem keep growing, innovating, and bringing in more fans.” The company further remarked. 

Mastercard also disclosed that it has collaborated with numerous different NFT marketplaces, nominally Immutable X, Candy Digital, The Sandbox (SAND), Mintable, Spring, Nifty Gateway, and Web3 infrastructure provider MoonPay.

The NFT card-purchase service was initially introduced in January 2022, within a partnership scope with Coinbase, providing supporting features for users to purchase NFTs using credit cards in a direct manner.

The expanding initiative of its payment network to cater to the fast-growing NFT ecosystem was also fueled by the firm’s latest survey of 35,000 respondents from 40 nations, which suggested that almost half (45%) of the consumers have either purchased an NFT or are contemplating the action. 

The payment processing heavyweight has been expressing interest in the crypto and NFT markets throughout the last few years. Earlier in April 2022, Mastercard submitted the filing for 15 metaverse and NFT-associated trademarks.