VISA To Use the USDC Stablecoin For Payments Settlement On Its Network

Payments giant VISA becomes the first major company to start processing its fiat transactions in digital currencies. In a major announcement earlier today, VISA said that it is allowing one of its clients to make payments in USDC stablecoin and start settling those transactions on the Ethereum blockchain network.

USDC is the second-most traded USD-pegged stablecoin in the crypto space. To attain this, VISA has launched a pilot program with popular crypto platform Crypto.com and will bring this option to more partners ahead this year.

The latest move from VISA comes as some of the big financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and others have started embracing cryptocurrencies. On the other hand, VISA is facing a growing competition with players like PayPal who are willing to raise the completion bar and grab the retail crypto market fast.

“We see increasing demand from consumers across the world to be able to access, hold and use digital currencies and we’re seeing demand from our clients to be able to build products that provide that access for consumers,” Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, said.

With the new project, VISA is completely eliminating the process of going back and forth of first covering crypto to fiat and then depositing it in the seller accounts and so on. VISA will be leveraging the Ethereum blockchain that eliminates the need of converting digital currency to traditional money for the transactions to be settled.

To achieve the, VISA has worked with Anchorage, the first federally chartered digital asset bank who is also the exclusive settlement partner for the payment’s giant. Thus, Crypto.com directly sends the USDC to VISA’s Ethereum address at Anchorage.

Jack Forestell, executive vice president and chief product officer, Visa said: “Crypto-native fintechs want partners who understand their business and the complexities of digital currency form factors. 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.”

VISA’s latest integration with Anchorage also bolsters VISA’s ability to support any central bank digital currencies as they come in the future.