Visa Inc CEO has announced that his firm has plans to facilitate cryptocurrency trading on its platform. In the past several years, the numbers of institutions and investors joining the crypto industry have grown massively. This trend has prompted the need for major companies like VISA to partner with the cryptocurrency industry intending to attract more users through the new investment opportunity.
In that context, the CEO and Chairman of VISA, Alfred Kelly, has highlighted that there is no apparent reason not to add cryptos since they are becoming ‘a recognized means of exchange.’
During an earnings call with analysts, Kelly said that due to Visa’s global presence, its notable partnership approach and its trusted brand, the fintech giant is well-positioned to ensure that cryptos are made safer. The CEO added that Visa also wants to make the digital currencies more useful and applicable for payments.
Nonetheless, to achieve that, Kelly believes that his organization will strive to divide the crypto market into two key segments, including digital currencies and cryptos. While describing the assets that will feature in the crypto segment, the CEO said that these will be considered as digital gold.
Kelly said that these currencies are mainly held as assets that are not used as a means of payment considerably at this point. The Visa executive then discussed the firm’s plan for the currencies stating:
“Our strategy here is to work with wallets and exchanges to enable users to purchase these currencies using their Visa credentials or to cash out onto a Visa credential to make a fiat purchase at any of the 70 million merchants where Visa’s accepted globally.”
Kelly believes that this strategy will be the same as Visa’s approach to integrating closed-loop wallets like Line Pay and Paytm.
Digital Currency Space
With regards to digital currencies that will appear in the second segment, the Visa CEO said that these will feature:
“fiat-backed digital currencies including stablecoins and central bank digital currencies.”
He added that the emerging payments innovations can be used for global commerce much like all the other fiat currencies.
In the meantime, the Visa CEO unveiled some of the 35 companies and organizations that have already decided to issue Visa cards. They include leading digital currency platforms and crypto wallet providers like “crypto.com, Blockfi, Fold, and Bitpanda.” Based on comments from Kelly, the wallet relationships represent the possibility for over 50 million Visa credentials.
