Visa Reveals Plans for Bitcoin as they Anticipate Mainstream Adoption

By: Henry Felix

March 18, 2021 6:45 PM

Visa CEO still bullish on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as he anticipates mainstream adoption within the next five years.

The payment giant CEO Al Kelly expects that crypto could go extremely mainstream in five years. He claimed he is working to place Visa at the heart of it before cryptocurrency takes off as they plan to open cryptocurrencies to be used at 70 million stores using the Visa platform.

In a Leadership Next podcast published on Tuesday with Alan Murray and Ellen McGirt, Visa CEO AI Kelly discussed the company strategy for crypto. With bitcoin rising above $61,000 as it reaches a new all-time high early this month, Kelly was asked what this recent price rise means to his business.

He added:
"I do like to split crypto into two categories," that is "a highly speculative asset" or " digital gold." 

He explained further saying, we are working to achieve two things which the first is to open the purchase of bitcoin on Visa. Additionally, Kelly claimed they are working with a few Bitcoin wallets in a bid to allow a swift bitcoin swap into fiat currency and back to be used at any of the 70 million stores accepting Visa across the world.

Kelly added that there is a strong potential for digital currencies to become a new payment method that could accelerate some of the world's emerging markets. He confirms that Visa is currently working with about 35 different players in this category of digital currencies with them being fiat-backed stablecoins.

Kelly's statement reflects what Visa explained in its Q1 2021 earnings call. “Our strategy here is to work with crypto wallets and exchanges to enable users to purchase these currencies using their Visa cards or to cash out onto our Visa card to make a fiat purchase at any of the 70 million merchants where Visa is accepted globally."

The Visa CEO was also asked during the podcast on Tuesday where the company stands given the real use of cryptocurrency is to lower transaction cost so people don't pay too much to payments giants like Mastercard and Visa as it stands currently.

As we sit here today, I can't predict to what degree cryptocurrencies are going to move. But "What I want to do is to make sure that our company is in the heart of crypto transactions today, so if it takes off now, we are already positioned to help move that money."

Kelly said that the company wants to be in the middle of the world money movement as that's the aim of the company at the moment. or share of the volume because they predict cryptocurrency boom and wants to be part of that movement the company is certainly getting prepared for that.

The CEO affirms that Visa is off to a good start as they look set to be in the middle of crypto transactions.