Visa, a payment company, intends to establish a habit for settlements by enabling its customers to exchange digital assets for fiat currencies on its platform, as revealed by the head of the company’s cryptocurrency division during a presentation at StarkWare Sessions 2023.
According to Cuy Sheffield during a fireside chat at StarkWare Sessions 2023, the company has been conducting trials to receive settlement payments on Ethereum and payout in USDC on Ethereum. These are significant value settlement payments, Sheffield stated. The Cointelegraph team is currently in Tel Aviv, covering the two-day Ethereum conference.
The executive stated that Visa is investing in the ability to settle globally using digital assets and fiat currencies. He emphasized that they aim to make conversions between digital tokenized dollars and traditional dollars as seamless as converting between dollars and euros in a cross-border transaction. This is an area where Visa wants to establish a standard practice.
Visa, the payment giant, has been investigating how to integrate blockchain technology into its current network for quicker money transfer; however, settlements are still conducted through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), a European bank-formed cooperative society that aims to ensure secure and standardized transaction communication among its members.
According to Sheffield, the limitations of the SWIFT system hinder their ability to transfer money as frequently as they would like. Therefore, they have been testing the acceptance of settlement payments using stablecoins. At Visa’s annual shareholder meeting, former CEO Al Kelly briefly spoke about the company’s plans for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and private stablecoins and stated that they have several initiatives underway in this area. Sheffield confirmed the company’s positive view on blockchain technology and digital assets and said they are actively exploring how to transfer the value they provide on traditional bank rails to blockchain rails using stablecoins.
He added that they believe there are great opportunities in this field and consider it a promising and growing area.
