Alfred Kelly, CEO of payment giant Visa Inc, has announced his company’s plans to enable cryptocurrency trading on its network. Kelly, who is also the company’s chairman, explains that there is no reason not to add cryptos when they are increasingly becoming a “recognized medium of exchange.”
Digital gold segment
In an interview with analysts, Kelly said that the fintech giant is “uniquely positioned to increase the security of cryptocurrencies” due to Visa’s “global presence, its partnership approach and its trustworthy brand”. The CEO adds that Visa also wants to make cryptos “more useful and applicable for payments”.
To achieve this, Kelly, according to his organization, will split the crypto market into two segments, namely cryptocurrencies and digital currencies. The CEO describes the assets that will be included in the cryptocurrency segment and says that these will be viewed as “digital gold”. According to Kelly, such currencies are “predominantly held as assets that are not in significant cash at the time”. The Visa chief then discusses the company’s plan for such currencies and says:
Our strategy is to work with wallets and exchanges so that users can purchase these currencies using their Visa credentials or cash out a Visa access to make a fiat purchase from any of the 70 million merchants that accept Visa worldwide .
According to Kelly, this strategy is similar to Visa ‘s approach of “connecting closed-loop wallets like Line Pay and Paytm”.
Digital currency segment
Regarding digital currencies, which will be included in the second segment, the Visa CEO says that these will be made up of “fiat-backed digital currencies including stable coins and central bank digital currencies”. He adds that these new payment innovations may “be used for global trade like any other fiat currency.”
Meanwhile, the Visa CEO reveals some of the 35 organizations that have already chosen to issue Visa cards. These include leading providers of digital currency platforms and wallets such as “crypto.com, Blockfi, Fold and Bitpanda”. According to Kelly, these wallet relationships “represent the potential for more than 50 million Visa credentials”.
What do you think of Visa’s plan to introduce crypto trading on its platform? You can share views in the comments section below.
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