Israeli FinTech Kima, MasterCard Lab Want to Develop ‘DeFi Credit Card’
Israeli fintech Kima and Mastercard's FinSec Innovation Lab launched a project to develop a use case for connecting decentralized finance (DeFi) tools and traditional services like credit cards and bank accounts. The project was called “Mac[ing] The “DeFi Credit Card” is real. The Israel Innovation Authority is supporting the project.
Kima is a peer-to-peer money transfer and payment protocol that runs on blockchain without smart contracts, which it describes on its website as “rogue and experimental.” It plans to expand the protocol and launch a mainnet and token in the second quarter of 2024. FinSec operates the Kima node and becomes a key stakeholder in the network.
FinSec is supported by Israel's National Cyber Directorate, the Ministry of Finance and the Innovation Authority. Works with fintech and cyber security startups. The project with Kima was announced in July 2023.
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The project focuses on creating a bridge between DeFi and traditional finance and helps users overcome technical and regulatory barriers to DeFi adoption. Ethan Katz, founder and CEO of Kima, said in a statement:
“The only way blockchain and DeFi can play outside of the best world of Web3 is when there is a simple, secure and affordable way to connect blockchain networks in a traditional financial way.”
Kima is expanding rapidly. It has announced six mergers and 18 new partnerships in 2024 alone. These include ventures in Vietnam and Thailand. It has also joined the Artificial Intelligence Protocol ChatGPT Incubator. Kima uses AI in its liquidity management algorithm.
Kima is one of 16 companies that FinSec supports. MasterCard is involved in several blockchain development projects. It is working on tokenized settlements on a joint ledger with US banks. In the European Economic Area, a crypto-powered credit card is partnering with DeFi platform Nexo, a central bank that is engaging with blockchains and payment providers to conduct research on digital currency.
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