Yesterday Feb 28th, 2023 Reuters published an article stating “Visa, Mastercard pause crypto push in wake of industry meltdown” – sources” which was featured by Yahoo News as well. However Visa’s Head of Crypto, Cuy Sheffield confirmed on twitter that Reuters news is inaccurate as it pertains to Visa.
He further confirmed that “Visa continues to partner with crypto companies to improve fiat on and off ramps as well as progress on our product roadmap to build new products that can facilitate stablecoin payments in a secure, compliant, and convenient way.
Despite the challenges and uncertainty in the crypto ecosystem, Visa’s view has not changed that fiat backed digital currencies running on public blockchains have the potential to play an important role in the payments ecosystem
Cuy further confirms that “This is the time to build! Anyone building at the intersection of crypto and payments please reach out. We’d love to work with you!”
Cury Sheffield
Visa on Cryptocurrency
Visa has been adopting crypto at a rapid scale. During Jan 2023 earnings call Visa confirmed that crypto-linked card usage hit $2.5 billion in its first quarter.
“We will continue to lean into the crypto space and our strategy is to be a key partner to provide the connectivity, scale, consumer value proposition, reliability and security that is needed for crypto offerings to continue to grow,” Visa CEO Al Kelly
Visa CEO Al Kelly in an CNBC Interview
“Looking at the broad categories of spend, we don’t see the volume concentrated in a specific merchant vertical with these programs. People are using their crypto-linked cards to spend in a variety of ways — retail goods and services, restaurants, travel. They’re increasingly being treated like a general purpose account,”
Visa CFO Vasant Prabhu told CNBC during the Earnings call.
Last month, Visa has joined forces with the crypto payments app Wirex to broaden its presence in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region and the United Kingdom, with the aim of providing customers with a wider range of payment choices.
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Image Credits: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg / Getty Images
