Visa Inc, the world’s largest payment processor, launched a global crypto advisory service on Wednesday for clients such as banks and also merchants as adoption of digital currencies gains momentum.
Visa’s move comes against the backdrop of unprecedented investor demand for crypto services, and the company’s latest offering is aimed at financial institutions eager to attract or retain customers with crypto offerings, retailers looking to delve into non-fungible tokens (NFTs), or central banks examining digital currencies.
Visa’s services include educating institutions about cryptocurrencies, allowing customers to use the payment processor’s network for digital offerings, and helping manage backend operations.
“We came to Visa to learn more about crypto and stablecoins and the use cases most relevant to our retail and commercial lines of business,” said Uma Wilson, executive vice president at UMB Bank, a regional US lender.
A new global study by Visa showed that nearly 40% of crypto owners surveyed were likely or very likely to switch their primary bank to one offering crypto-related products in the next 12 months.
Visa currently uses its network to enable the buying, selling and holding of digital currencies. It also offers a credit card that allows users to earn bitcoin on purchases and also allows USD Coin, a stablecoin cryptocurrency whose value is directly pegged to the US dollar, to settle transactions on its payment network.
Using cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin as a medium of exchange requires price stability, Visa’s chief financial officer Vasant Prabhu told Reuters.
“If the price is going to swing from $60,000 to $50,000 in a few hours, it will be very difficult for a trader to accept (bitcoin) as a currency,” Prabhu said.
“I don’t know if cryptocurrencies like bitcoin will ever be a medium of exchange. Stablecoins will,” he said, adding that Visa would facilitate such transactions when the time was right.
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)