Payments giant Visa mulls over supporting Bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading

According to Visa Inc’s CEO, Alfred Kelly, the payments giant has plans to enable cryptocurrency trading on its network. He explained during an online appearance last week that there was no reason why Visa should not accept digital assets since they are becoming increasingly popular. Kelly said:

To the extent, a specific digital currency becomes a recognized means of exchange, there’s no reason why we cannot add it to our network, which already supports over 160 currencies today.

Kelly believes that his firm already has what it takes to succeed in the cryptocurrency space. He opines that with Visa’s “global presence, its partnership approach as well as its trusted brand,” it is “uniquely positioned” to help make cryptocurrencies safer.

Despite the massive attention that cryptocurrencies are getting, Kelly is not convinced of their broader use case. So far, a significant percentage of cryptocurrency transactions revolve around crypto exchanges and wallet providers who accept fiat payments from customers in exchange for digital assets. Kelly believes that his firm’s entry into the industry will make cryptos “more useful and applicable for payments.” Clarifying how this would be done, he said:

Our strategy here is to work with wallets and exchanges to enable users to purchase these currencies using their Visa credentials or to cash out onto our Visa credential to make a fiat purchase at any of the 70 million merchants where Visa is accepted globally.

Visa had earlier revealed that it was working on offline payment options for digital payments.