Visa customers made USD 2.5 billion in payments with the company’s crypto-linked cards in the first quarter of 2022. The financial services corporation also revealed that its cryptocurrency wallet partners now number over 65, including Coinbase and BlockFi, as the number of merchants accepting crypto grew to almost 100 million.
In a recent earnings call led by Chairman and CEO Al Kelly, the company said that the USD 2.5 billion is “70 percent of the payments volume for all of fiscal 2021”.
Crypto payments on Visa
A year of digital payments
According to Financial Express, the CEO also said that the number of crypto wallet partners have grown to 65 from 50 in July 2021. The added wallet partners are designed to make it easier for customers to convert and spend digital currency at merchants.
Visa had in March 2021 opened its doors to cryptocurrency by accepting a virtual currency payment. In the first half of the same year, Visa recorded over USD 1 billion payments through crypto-linked Visa cards.
The company had also launched Global Crypto Advisory Practice, its crypto consulting services, in December 2021.
Utility in Visa-crypto linked card
CNBC reports that Visa CFO Vasant Prabhu told the media network that the developments indicate that consumers see an advantage in the card having a crypto account link.
“To us, this signals that consumers see utility in having a Visa card linked to an account at a crypto platform. There’s value in being able to access that liquidity, to fund purchases and manage expenses, and to do so instantly and seamlessly,” Prabhu told CNBC.
Prabhu also said that people are using the crypto-linked cards for payments in restaurants, travel, and retail goods and services.
On the call, Kelly said, “We will continue to lean into the crypto space and our strategy is to be a key partner to provide the connectivity, scale, consumer value proposition, reliability and security that is needed for crypto offerings to continue to grow.”
(Main and Featured images: CardMapr/@cardmapr/Unsplash)
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