Al Kelly, the CEO of payments giant Visa, has advocated blockchain-based payment solutions that will revolutionize the future of the fintech industry. Kelly has pinned his hopes on stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), both powered by blockchains, to open up newer and faster ways to facilitate everyday and high-volume payments. Visa’s chief made these statements just days before stepping down from his current position.
Visas, founded in 1958, is ready to participate in experimentation around the development and use cases of CBDCs and private stablecoins, Kelly indicated during its recent annual general meeting. “It’s still very early days, but we continue to believe that stablecoins and central bank digital currencies have the potential to play a significant role in payments and we have a number of initiatives underway,” a CoinTelegraph Report quoted Kelly as saying.
During CBDCs are Blockchain Representations of fiat currencies, private stablecoins are digital assets traded in the crypto market, but their value largely depends on their underlying reserve assets such as gold or the US dollar.
Market sentiment, on the other hand, has no impact on CBDCs stablecoins manage to cling to the values of their reserved assets to fetch better prices than other cryptocurrencies.
Despite the recent slump in the crypto sector, Kelly said Visa hasn’t seen any stumbling blocks on its balance sheets. The company plans to continue exploring the crypto sector as it is committed to doing its part to drive the adoption of promising next-gen payment ecosystems.
Several nations including India, China and Russia are currently working on their respective CBDCs. On the other hand, stablecoins such as USD coin, Binance USD, rippleand tether Rope gains on days when other altcoins struggle with volatility.
The company plans to continue innovating with CBDCs and stablecoins in the future.
Visa announced in January last year that its customers processed $2.5 billion (around Rs. 18,685 billion) in payments using its crypto-linked cards in the first fiscal quarter of 2022. This volume, when put into perspective, made up over 70 percent of the total crypto card volume, indicating an increase in crypto payment acceptance during these months.
Visa last December suggested functionality This would allow users to make their phone and electricity payments through self-custodial crypto wallets. This application could allow a user to set up a programmable payment order that can automatically move funds from one self-custodial wallet account to another at recurring intervals, eliminating the need for users to manually sign off on each transaction.
The company also has started a creator program that helps artists of the digital age understand and use NFTs.
Kelly, who has been Visa’s head since 2016, is expected to step down from his position in February. Ryan McInerney, Visa’s current president, will succeed Kelly as CEO of the company.
