MasterCard’s Irish unit R&D head, Ken Moore, thinks that it could no longer be claimed as a digital payments solution provider. That is because it is not restricting itself to the initial focus and is now focusing beyond that space. For this purpose, the company’s unit is looking at deep tech.

Three Key Focus Areas

MasterCard’s R&D lead for Irish unit indicated that it would concentrate on not only artificial intelligence and machine learning but also on blockchain technology as part of deep tech. Moore disclosed that it will look beyond the hype created on the emerging technologies like blockchain so that it would be in a position to create “real, grounded services and products,” irishtimes.com reported.

These products or solution would be introduced to a wider section even as Moore claimed that it was not an exploratory work for the company. The second biggest payments firm has witnessed significant growth after shifting most of its R&D work to Ireland in the recent past. As a result, the unit is having over 400 people where the R&D headquarters is based currently. Until now, the lab’s focus is on digital payments solutions like Identity Check and QKR.

Additional Force

The latest move to focus on three key areas meant that the unit would add about 175 fresh jobs in the country. The roles included specialists on blockchain and cloud infrastructure besides data scientists. In the recent past, the Irish unit is suffering a loss since its focus is not on generating revenues. MasterCard’s Irish unit R&D head, Ken Moore said,

“We build new products for MasterCard globally out of Dublin, so we incur the costs for that in Ireland even though the services we provide are global.”

In any case, the unit could make a profit of Euro 14.2 million last year from a pretax loss of Euro 30.9 million in 2016. This was due to revenue increasing to Euro 30.1 million from Euro 18.6 million. The company is on the path of a major restructuring after Garry Lyons, who established MasterCard Labs in 2012, left the firm.

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