Visa leaning into “digital gold” in a “big way”
Visa Chief Executive Officer, Al Kelly, described the payments firm as “extremely well-positioned” to realize its crypto ambitions, during an earnings call this Tuesday.
Visa is currently set on a multi-faceted strategy with its payments services related to Bitcoin, other crytpocurrencies and also central bank digital currencies or CBDCs. According to Kelly, the world is currently at the intersection of new payment technologies.
During the earnings call, Kelly made a distinction between the different elements of their strategy. He thereby discussed the spending and purchase of cryptocurrencies, crypto-related APIs for financial institutions, settlements via stablecoins and CBDCs.
When speaking about the crypto market, Kelly made the distinction of investment assets, or “digital gold” as he called it and digital currencies. The latter he said are more amenable to payments.
“So our focus is on five different opportunities that we see in this space and I would say that this is space that we are leaning into in a very big way and I think are extremely well-positioned,” Kelly said in the call.
Kelly said that Visa is adding partnerships with crypto exchanges such as Coinbase, Crypto.com and Bitpanda.
Central Bank Digital Currency
Touching on CBDCs, the CEO said that the firm is engaged in conversations with central banks about the development of their digital currencies thereby reiterating the role that Visa can play in the process.
“We’re talking to central banks about the criticality of public/private partnership and in particular the criticality of acceptance because for these central bank digital currencies to have value, they’re going to have to both be secure in the minds of consumers, and that’s something we have a long track record with and could help. And then secondly, obviously they have to have some form of utility,” Kelly concluded the topic.
Over the first quarter of 2021, Visa reported a net income of $3 billion, or $1.38 per share, slightly down from $3.1 billion, or $1.39 per share, over the same period in 2020.
The post Visa leaning into “digital gold” in a “big way” appeared first on iGaming.
Source: igaming
