Visa Becomes First Major Payments Network to Settle Transactions in USD Coin (USDC)
March 29 2021 - 5:00AM
Business Wire
With the direct acceptance of payments in USD
Coin, Visa forges new connections between digital and traditional
currencies.
Visa (NYSE: V) today announced a major industry first in
bridging the worlds of digital and traditional fiat currencies: the
use of USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin backed by the US dollar, to
settle a transaction with Visa over Ethereum—one of the most
actively used open-source blockchains.1 Visa is piloting the
capability with Crypto.com, a Visa partner and one of the world’s
largest crypto platforms, and plans to offer the USDC settlement
capability to additional partners later this year.
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the full release here:
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Visa Becomes First Major Payments Network
to Settle Transactions in USD Coin (USDC) (Graphic: Business
Wire)
Support for digital currencies as a new type of settlement
currency marks an important step forward for Visa’s network of
networks strategy, which is designed to enhance all forms of money
movement, whether on the Visa network, or beyond. By harnessing its
global presence, partnership approach, and trusted brand, Visa is
focused on adding differentiated value to the ecosystem and making
cryptocurrencies more secure, useful, and applicable for
payments.
Visa has spent the last year establishing a pathway for digital
currency settlement within Visa’s existing treasury infrastructure,
a platform that moves billions of dollars each day across thousands
of institutions in more than 200 markets and 160 currencies.
Working with Anchorage, the first federally chartered digital asset
bank and an exclusive Visa digital currency settlement partner,
Visa has launched a pilot that allows Crypto.com to send USDC to
Visa to settle a portion of its obligations for the Crypto.com Visa
card program.
Visa’s standard settlement process requires partners to settle
in a traditional fiat currency, which can add cost and complexity
for businesses built with digital currencies. The ability to settle
in USDC can ultimately help Crypto.com and other crypto native
companies evaluate fundamentally new business models without the
need for traditional fiat in their treasury and settlement
workflows. Visa’s treasury upgrades and integration with Anchorage
also strengthen Visa’s ability to directly support new central bank
digital currency (CBDC) as they emerge in the future.
“Crypto-native fintechs want partners who understand their
business and the complexities of digital currency form factors,”
said Jack Forestell, executive vice president and chief product
officer, Visa. “The announcement today marks a major milestone in
our ability to address the needs of fintechs managing their
business in a stablecoin or cryptocurrency, and it’s really an
extension of what we do every day, securely facilitating payments
in all different currencies all across the world.”
Kris Marszalek, Co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com said: “We’ve
seen record-breaking growth in our business and the broader crypto
ecosystem over the last year. To continue accelerating the world’s
transition to cryptocurrency, we need partners who understand the
opportunity and the tools that will help us get to market faster
and more efficiently. Having been a Visa partner for several years,
we’re excited to deepen that relationship through our global
agreement and to pioneer an exciting world-first in stablecoin
payments.”
“Anchorage’s platform has been purposefully built for
institutions like Visa to build new products in crypto. We’ve been
with Visa every step of the way since 2019 and are extremely
pleased to see these first stablecoin payment rails come to life
through Anchorage APIs,” said Diogo Mónica, Co-Founder and
President of Anchorage.
David Puth, CEO of Centre, which oversees the licensing of USDC,
said: "Visa is leading the market with its innovative approach to
payments in many forms. We are very impressed with their efforts.
Having USDC on the Visa network is an outstanding next step in our
mission to connect the world using stablecoins built on Centre
standards, starting with USDC."
To learn more about today’s news and the settlement process at
Visa, visit the Visa blog.
About Visa
Visa (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our
mission is to connect the world through the most innovative,
reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals,
businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing
network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the
world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction
messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is
a catalyst for the rapid growth of digital commerce on any device,
for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to
digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and
scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information,
visit About Visa, visa.com/blog and @VisaNews.
1 “Settlement” refers to the daily exchange of funds between
Visa’s issuing and acquiring partners over VisaNet to exchange
value for cleared and settled transactions—it does not refer to the
movement of funds from individual consumer accounts.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210329005171/en/
Visa Media Lea Cademenos lcademen@visa.com
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