Visa CEO And CFO Highlight Involvement And Efforts To Bring Cryptocurrencies Mainstream
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Payment Service Leader Supports Real-World Uses For Crypto
Visa, the multinational payment service provider, is on a mission to connect global consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments. The platform aims to solve the rising number of the global unbanked population while reducing the economic inequality within and among countries, a core objective of the United Nations’ ten sustainable development goals.
In Visa fiscal third-quarter 2021 earnings call, the company’s executive board stressed that they consider cryptocurrencies one of the potential forces to help solve the global unbanked problem. The platform has partnered with some of the most prominent crypto companies to offer users from developed, developing, and third-world countries easy and affordable access to digital currencies.
Visa CEO and Chairman Al Kelly mentioned, “In the crypto space, we recently signed three partnerships: one with Tala to partner on cryptocurrency solutions for the global unbanked; and two, with crypto exchanges, FTX and CoinZoom, to begin offering Visa cards. We now have more than 50 crypto wallets and platforms, up from 35 in Q1 and more than the next leading network. And collectively, they drove over $1 billion in payments volume, which represents a significant engine of growth.”
Visa has collaborated with CoinZoom to roll out its range of CoinZoom Visa Cards for its US customers. These Visa cards allow users to spend their crypto holdings across 53 million merchants and Visa partner stores worldwide. Additionally, each card features cashback, rewards, and discounts, varying based on the user’s CoinZoom wallet balance.
The recently published Insider Trading report shows that CoinZoom Visa card users spend roughly $1 million on crypto cards each month, highlighting the growing acceptance of cryptocurrencies as payment for goods and services. Visa isn’t the only payments service provider contributing to the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies. Brands like PayPal, Square, Gemini, and several others are also a part of the crypto revolution, each helping to reduce the widespread financial imbalance across the world.
Ushering In A New Era Of Global Remittances
One of the major problems being observed by the World Bank and other financial organizations is the sharply declining rate of global remittances. Migrants from economically weaker countries are finding it increasingly difficult to send money back home.
Most global payment providers like Visa are aware of the situation and are working to introduce optimized solutions to facilitate more seamless cross-border transactions. During the earnings conference call, Vasant Prabhu, Visa’s Vice-Chairman and CFO, noted, “We’re making extraordinary progress in remittances. For example, we signed up all the major remittance providers and we can provide a very flexible, very attractive proposition for their consumers at a very attractive cost. And remittances are almost as big in volume as foreign direct investment.”
Although platforms like PayPal and Venmo offer a solution, it is practically impossible to avoid high transaction charges for international payments. This is where CoinZoom’s peer-to-peer remittance service, ZoomMe, comes into the picture. Aligned with Visa’s goals of enabling cost-effective cross-border transactions, ZoomMe allows anyone to transfer crypto and fiat anywhere in the world without paying any fees. The platform is simple, intuitive, and enables users to send money quickly and easily without the need for bank accounts or intermediaries.
According to Todd Crosland, CoinZoom’s CEO, “We’re really proud to be a partner with Visa and offer our crypto debit card to customers in the U.S. currently, with Europe coming soon. We believe allowing consumers to spend their crypto as they would spend any other funds is helping propel the mass adoption of crypto forward, along with our peer-to-peer remittance service, ZoomMe. ZoomMe allows consumers to send USD or crypto internationally instantly for free.”