The leader in credit card companies Visa remains confident that blockchain-powered solutions may find their way into its services to help speed up the development of the next generation in payments.
Visa`s outgoing CEO Al Kelly — who will officially step down on Feb. 1 — highlighted the company’s plans for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and private stablecoins.
The San Francisco Business Times wrote that Visa saw potential in stablecoins and CBDCs, which could be pivotal for the payments space development.
“It’s very early days, but we continue to believe that stablecoins and central bank digital currencies have the potential to play a meaningful role in the payments space, and we have a number of initiatives underway,” Kelly noted.
“We’ve had an immaterial amount of investments in crypto funds and companies as we seek to invest in the payments ecosystem,” the outgoing CEO added.
Meanwhile, Kelly confirmed that Visa’s balance sheet suffered little to no damage through some of the “high-profile disasters” that marked the cryptocurrency space in 2022:
“We’ve had no credit losses related to these failures [...] In everything we do, please know that we’re extremely focused on maintaining the integrity of Visa’s payment system and the payment system in totality and of course, the reputation of our brand standing for trust.” Kelly stated.
VISA and its blockchain endeavors
VISA is no stranger to blockchain-powered crypto-related initiatives, as its research team started working on the Universal Payment Channel (UPC) initiative back in September 2021. UPC had the idea of setting up a “network of networks” for CBDCs and private stablecoins to communicate via diverse payment channels. However, the UPC initiative did not receive any updates in over 12 months.
Nevertheless, VISA announced on Dec. 20 that the company is thinking about how to allow automated bills to be paid via users’ Ethereum-powered wallets. Furthermore, the credit card giant has additionally rolled out numerous “zero fees” cryptocurrency debit cards in partnerships with the infamous FTX, as well as a partnership with Blockchain.com on Oct. 26, which currently is still in effect.
More information about VISA`s relationship with FTX may be discovered in Visa’s Q1 2023 earnings call on Jan. 26, as the data of the 2022 report only covers the period from January 1 to September 30, 2022.
Visa President Ryan McInerney will officially substitute Al Kelly as CEO on Feb. 1, but Kelly will remain in the company as executive chairman. Interestingly, McInerney seems to be on par, if not more bullish than Kelly on blockchain-powered payment solutions
In an interview with Fortune in November, McInerney stated that Visa processes “$14 trillion of cash spent by customers that may be digitized” and they’re continuing to discover where crypto payments can be best utilized.