Mastercard Bolsters Crypto Space with CipherTrace Buyout

To bolster trust and transparency in the booming digital assets space, Mastercard (MA) has announced its plans to acquire CipherTrace. The terms of the agreement have not been disclosed so far. The company expects to close the deal by the end of 2021.

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Mastercard is a global payments and technology company. CipherTrace is a cryptocurrency intelligence company that bridges virtual currencies and financial services together with fraud protection, anti-money laundering and financial investigation solutions. (See Mastercard stock charts on TipRanks)

The acquisition will bring together CipherTrace’s suite of digital assets and Mastercard’s cyber security solutions, which will allow clients to better identify and understand risks, along with supporting management of digital asset regulatory and compliance obligations. Also, Mastercard will be able to provide customers, merchants and businesses more options as to how they move the digital currency.

The President of Mastercard’s Cyber & Intelligence unit, Ajay Bhalla, said, “With the rapid growth of the digital asset ecosystem comes the need to ensure it is trusted and safe. Our aim is to build upon the complementary capabilities of Mastercard and CipherTrace to do just this.”

On September 3, Robert W. Baird analyst David Koning maintained a Buy rating on Mastercard with a price target of $482, which implies 37.2% upside potential.

Koning is optimistic about the stock, as cross-border travel volumes continue to recover. Also, the analyst expects Mastercard to report earnings of $2.18 per share in the third quarter.

Overall, the rest of the Street is bullish on the stock and has a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 14 Buys and 1 Hold. The average Mastercard price target of $441.27 implies upside potential of about 25.6% from current levels.

TipRanks data shows that financial blogger opinions are 91% Bullish on MA, compared to the sector average of 72%.