(Bloomberg) When MasterCard Inc. paid a team of
lobbyists about $70,000 earlier this year to promote the bank-card network’s views, a new topic made their list: bitcoin.
Washington-based Peck Madigan Jones had five of its
lobbyists, including Jeff Peck, who leads the firm’s financial
services and capital markets practice, work on subjects
including “bitcoin and mobile payments” in the House of
Representatives and Senate during the first quarter, according
to a regulatory filing. Other topics the firm handled for
MasterCard included data breaches, interchange fees and gift
cards.
As big financial companies dismiss bitcoin’s prospects, the
document shows MasterCard is at least talking with lawmakers
about the virtual currency, which entrepreneurs pitch as a cheap
alternative to established payment systems. Investors in bitcoin
businesses are working to head off burdensome regulation and
capture some of the combined $61.3 billion in annual revenue
generated by the four largest U.S. credit-card networks.
“We were gathering information in connection with recent
congressional hearings to better understand the policy issues
around virtual and anonymous currencies,” said Jim Issokson, a
spokesman for Purchase, New York-based MasterCard.
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