During Visa's earnings call for the period ending March 31 last week, the payments giant outlined its commitment to the crypto space, highlighting five key areas the company is focusing on.
Al Kelly, Visa’s Chairman and CEO, began by noting that there are “two parts of the market” his company sees in the cryptocurrency space. One of them is Bitcoin, which he described as "basically" an asset that people own. He continued, "We kind of think of them as digital gold." Then there are digital currencies, including central bank digital currencies [CBDCs] and stablecoins that are directly supported by existing fiat currencies. ”
The CEO further revealed:
Our focus is on five different opportunities we see in this space. And I would say this is a space that we tend to in a very big way and I think is very well positioned.
The first opportunity explained by the CEO of Visa is “to enable consumers to buy these currencies or bitcoins”. “We are working hard with wallets and exchanges to make sure we facilitate acceptance of people being able to use their Visa cards to make purchases,” he explained.
Kelly explained that the second opportunity is to “enable digital money exchanges for digital currency,” adding that this means “converting a digital currency into a fiat currency on Visa credentials, which then allows this money to shop in any one of the seventy.” Million Visa merchants provide instant benefit in digital currency ”.
The CEO noted: “We have over 35 digital currency platforms and wallets that have chosen to work with us. Coinbase, Crypto.com, Blockfi, Fold and Bitpanda are just some of the examples. So this is definitely a great second chance. ”
The third cryptocurrency opportunity that Visa is focusing on is enabling financial institutions and fintech partners to offer a cryptocurrency option to their customers.
Kelly explained that Visa has “created application programming interfaces (APIs) that enable financial institution clients to purchase, hold, or even trade digital currencies held by Anchorage, which is the first digital asset bank to be federally in the United States and we have made our first launch with First Boulevard, a new digital bank focused on building generational wealth for the black community. ”
The fourth opportunity is “Settlement,” to which the CEO said: “We have modernized our infrastructure to allow a financial institution to settle with this in a digital currency with a stable currency, starting with USDC.” Kelly concluded that the last area of opportunity in the cryptocurrency space "is only working with central banks."
