‘Digital gold’: Visa bets big on cryptocurrency

Visa is working with central banks on CBDC policy, and is advocating for public-private partnerships to support CBDCs, a model that many digital currency experts believe will be the prevailing model, particularly given the complex work required to digitize currency in different nations. Visa has filed a patent application for technology that would support connections between financial institutions and central banks.

„Central bank digital currencies could end up being quite valuable in countries where the infrastructure is unavailable or limited,” said Al Kelly, chairman and CEO of Visa, during company’s the earnings call, estimating there’s an addressable market of more than 1.7 billion consumers that could be reached and suggesting there’s space to expand its work with government clients.

Gold rush

Kelly discussed several ways Visa is engaging the crypto market, which he divided into investment assets — or „digital gold” as he called it — and digital currencies, which he said are more amenable to payments.

Visa is positioned to quickly convert these investments for funds that are usable across the company’s 80 million merchant network. „It’s the core of what we do, enabling consumers to make a purchase,” Kelly said, adding Visa is adding partnerships with crypto exchanges such as Coinbase, Crypto.com and Bitpanda. Visa has also upgraded its infrastructure to allow settlement in stablecoins.

„We are leaning into this in a big way,” Kelly said, according to Paymentssource.

Governments are also digitizing more of their operations, Kelly said, an indirect nod using digital rails to disburse stimulus payments and eventual CBDCs. „Governments are becoming bigger clients, and we’ll see more of that activity, in general, than we had before the pandemic,” Kelly said.