Visa enters into a partnership with Circle to integrate its USDC stable coin within its network of merchants.
Visa, a global financial services company and credit card giant, has partnered with Circle Internet Financial, a leading crypto fintech startup, to integrate the latter’s stable coin.
Visa Taps USDC for Digital Payments
According to Forbes, on Dec. 2, Visa will be adopting Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) into its credit card platforms. The collaboration between both companies would see the use of a stable coin to send and receive payments.
Visa will not be a custodian to the USDC, Circle will help the financial services giant choose to credit that will integrate the USDC into their platforms. The report also noted that 25 crypto companies involved in Visa’s Fast Track program would also be included in the partnership.
Visa plans to roll a credit card in the near future, following Circle’s completion of the company’s Fast Track program. It would enable businesses to seamlessly carry out payments using USDC. Commenting on the proposition, Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto, said:
“This will be the first, corporate card that will allow businesses to be able to spend a balance of USDC. And so we think that this will significantly increase the utility that USDC can have for Circle’s business clients.”
Digital Payments Adoption on the Agenda
As I have shown to a recent report by CryptoPotato, Visa, and BlockFi, a crypto wallet provider, announced a collaboration to launch a Bitcoin rewards credit card in 2021. The credit card would enable customers to get rewards for their purchases in BTC. BlockFi would use the USDC in Q1 2021.
Sheffield also spoke on the integration of Circle’s stable coin, saying:
“We continue to think of Visa as a network of networks. Blockchain networks and stable coins, like USDC are just additional networks. So we think that there’s a significant value that Visa can provide to our clients, enabling them to access them and enabling them to spend at our merchants.”
As shown above that Visa – Circle partnership is the latest development in the expanding digital payments arena. Fellow payments giant PayPal recently boarded the crypto train, allowing its 346 million users to purchase cryptocurrencies on its platform.
Back in November, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman revealed that cryptos would be an accepted funding source for online payments on its 28 million merchants by 2021. During the ongoing Web Summit in Portugal, Schulman opined that the era of digital payments was imminent.
