Mastercard and Visa are racing to make cryptocurrency integral part of their payment structure, with the companies securing partnership deals to enhance crypto-powered payments.

To this end, Mastercard said Tuesday it inked a deal with Coinbase to enable Mastercard customers to make blockchain-based purchases, increasing the payment firm’s number of partnerships.

As part of the agreement, Coinbase customers will be able to use Mastercard credit and debit cards to make purchases on the crypto exchange’s upcoming NFT marketplace. Coinbase unveiled late last year plans to launch the platform for minting and buying non-fungible tokens, which have exploded in popularity over the past 12 months, CNBC reports.

By teaming up with Mastercard, Coinbase executives said they’re looking to reduce friction in the NFT buying process. Right now, that often requires customers opening up a crypto wallet, buying digital currencies, then spending those on NFTs in an online marketplace. Mastercard, meanwhile, said it’s looking to help expand consumer choice on how to pay for NFTs.

“Getting more people involved safely and securely is perhaps the best way to help the NFT market thrive. As it does, Mastercard sees even greater potential for NFTs’ underlying tech to go beyond art and collectibles into many more areas,” Mastercard’s Raj Dhamodharan said.

Mastercard, one of the world’s largest credit card and payment companies, has been on a crypto partnership spree lately. Mastercard announced in October that it’s teaming up with Bakkt to let banks and merchants in its network offer crypto-related services. It has also partnered up with Gemini, BitPay and Mintable, among others.

Rival Visa has been equally active the crypto space. The company has more than 60 partnerships with companies in the space, including the one with Coinbase.

American Express has also said it’s exploring using its cards and network with stablecoins. But CEO Stephen Squeri recently told Yahoo Finance that consumers should not expect to see an Amex-crypto-linked card “anytime soon.”

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin were first designed to get around banks and intermediaries. But banks and payment companies have embraced those technologies as cryptocurrencies become mainstream.

Mizuho Securities analyst Dan Dolev said in an email that Tuesday’s announcement as another example of Mastercard’s “out-of-the-box thinking” in its approach to crypto. Over the long-term, though, Dolev said blockchain technologies and decentralized finance “can be a threat to the overall network ecosystem as they are challenging the trusted third party concept.”

Late last year, Amazon UK announced plan to cut ties with Visa over high cost of payment processing fees amidst evolving technology, which Amazon believes should make payments cheaper. Cryptocurrency offers cheaper and faster cross-border payments, and it is becoming immensely adopted around the world, threatening traditional financial firms.

Mastercard and Visa among others, are onboarding crypto services through partnerships to ward off the threat.

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Owing to the fraudulent or dubious attributes that accompany the use of tinted glasses, the Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Act regulates the degree to which vehicle windows can be tinted, especially the front windows.

These limits are in place to enable the Police and other security agents identify the driver and passengers of the vehicle in question, as well as allow motorists to see through the windows of other vehicles in order to spot hazards that otherwise could not be noticed. Similar regulation or restriction is also accorded to the use of siren.

Furthermore, customized or personalized number plate, which creates a unique identity of any vehicle it is applied on, is another sensitive gadget indiscriminately used by automobile owners in Nigeria.
In essence, a customized registration number plate, which is really much easier to memorize, conceals how long the automobile has been in existence contrary to a general number plate that discloses the age of the vehicle that bears it.

Summarily, a personalized number plate, which its use is equally controlled by the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), is widely used for three main purposes, namely: creation of uniqueness, easy memorization as well as for concealment of the automobile age, as the case may be.
However, in some quarters like the entertainment industry, most individuals use it to showcase to their fans or the public in general how influential they are, thereby ridiculing the prime essence of the device.
Owing to this lingering abuse as stated above, the apt authorities had in various times banned or warned decisively on the continued use of these sensitive gadgets by unauthorized Nigerians.

It’s appalling to observe that despite the incessant severe warnings, most Nigerians such as the politicos and what have you, still violate the law on a daily basis with impunity, thereby disabusing the members of the public of the popular notion that ‘no one is greater than the law’.

It’s more worrisome to realize that these persons received an unofficial or illegal authorization to make use of the devices from the top personnel or employees of the concerned law enforcement agencies such as the FRSC.

Such preferential treatment invariably received by influential Nigerians from the above mentioned saboteurs, in the name of ‘immunity’, really calls for a public outcry as well as a more stiff measure towards its eradication.

Against this backdrop, any member of the FRSC alongside other relevant bodies caught in the act of sabotage or any form of criminality ought to be outrightly dismissed and thereafter duly prosecuted no matter whose ox is gored. In the same spirit, any unauthorized citizen regardless of his/her status found wanting, is also meant to face the wrath of the law.

Inter alia, there’s a compelling need to review most of the laws or Acts biding the use of sensitive vehicular devices in Nigeria to include siren, tinted glass and customized number plate, with a view to making amends where need be.

The proposed review needs to be done headlong without further ado considering the societal implications of the aforesaid uncalled lifestyle unabated displayed by various Nigerians who think they are beyond the law of the land that is invariably reckoned to be a respecter of nobody.

More so, the various military cum paramilitary organizations in the country ought to be extremely careful whenever they are recruiting new members into their respective confraternities with a view to ensuring no person of any questionable character benefits from the exercise as long as it lasts.

They must be conscious of the fact that the membership of such bodies isn’t meant for everybody or all Nigerians. Unarguably, the ongoing alarming pace of sabotage witnessed in several quarters in Nigeria is mainly attributable to harbouring of fraudsters, albeit ignorantly, by various sensitive societies or corporate bodies across the country.

The President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration that seems to possess a high-integrity profile against corrupt practices is expected to act very fast toward ending this alarming rate of heresy, before we’ll wake one morning only to realize that the FRSC and its likes have been taken over by a group of ‘bloody’ civilians.