Just-In: VISA Plans to Make Crypto More Usable Than Any other Currency

VISA, the centralized payment processing giant revealed crypto transactions for its crypto-linked cards have exceeded $1 billion in the first two quarters of 2021. The payment processing giant offers crypto spending facilities through its cards in association with Coinbase, Circle, and BlockFi. The payment processing giant revealed the year-on-year crypto spending on the VISA network has seen a massive jump.

The CFO of VISA Vasant Prabhu said they want to make crypto one of the most usable forms of currency in the coming years. Prabhu told CNBC,

“We are doing a lot to create an ecosystem that makes cryptocurrency more usable and more like any other currency.”

The payment processing giant has partnered with several crypto businesses across the world to make it convenient for people to spend their crypto holdings at places where Visa is accepted.

We see a lot of volume on our [network] of people buying cryptocurrencies at these various regulated exchanges and as far as we can see that trend continues,” Prabhu said.

VISA: Crypto Could Disrupt $18 Trillion Consumer Spending Market

The payment processing giant has been involved with cryptocurrencies for over a year now after its early snubs for the digital asset market. The payment processing giant now sees crypto as the central part of the consumer spending market and beleive it could disrupt the $18 trillion market. VISA’s crypto business opens the gate for crypto spending at over 70 million partner merchants.

VISA and MasterCard, the two payment processing giants have actively worked with crypto businesses over the past couple of years to make crypto spending easier. Mastercard’s latest partnership with Gemini would allow consumers to earn crypto rewards on credit cards.

During the interview, VISA CFO also revealed that they have no plans of adding crypto to their balance sheet which had become a trend of the sort in the first quarter of 2021 after MicroStrategy and Tesla popularised it. Prabhu said,

“We don’t hold cryptocurrencies on our balance sheet today. We hold currencies on our balance sheet that we need to run our business. We hold currencies that we get paid in or we pay people in. That tends to be the dollar, euro, pound. So we don’t have plans to hold cryptocurrency because it’s not typically the way we get paid or the way we pay people,”

About Author

An engineering graduate, Prashant focuses on UK and Indian markets. As a crypto-journalist, his interests lie in blockchain technology adoption across emerging economies.

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