Visa still bullish about cryptocurrency

Visa CEO Al Kelly has reconfirmed that the payments platform is still committed to offering cryptocurrency payments and onramps for customers in the Visa first-quarter earnings call earlier in the week.

Kelly: Visa well-positioned to thrive in cryptocurrency

Kelly’s comments were evidence that the payments service provider has its eyes on the crypto prize for the long-term future. Not only is the firm still committed to remain a player in the sector, but it believes that it is in the right position to encourage users to the industry and pursue the wider adoption use-case of the market. As Kelly said, according a transcript:

“We believe that we are uniquely positioned to help make cryptocurrencies more safe, useful and applicable for payments,” by virtue of Visa’s size, integrations, and brand recognition.”

Bitcoin’s store of value

Kelly divided the way Visa is classifying blockchain assets:

1. Cryptocurrencies that represent new financial assets (such as Bitcoin which serve as a store-of-value, and
2. Stable tokens which are pegged directly to existing fiat currencies and used more routinely for payments and transactions.

To offer support for the first category store-of-value tokens, Kelly noted that Visa’s aim is to offer on-ramp services so that customers can purchase and hold the tokens:

“Our strategy here is to work with wallets and exchanges to enable users to purchase these currencies using their Visa credentials or to cash out onto our Visa credential to make a fiat purchase at any of the 70 million merchants where Visa is accepted globally.”

Visa bullish on stablecoins

On the other side of the coin, Visa’s approach to the future of the stablecoins stands as optimistic, with the firms suggesting that the potential for digital currencies offers a lot more use-case. According to Visa, cryptocurrencies are an “emerging payments innovation that could have the potential to be used for global commerce, much like any other fiat currency.”