Cryptocurrency has been a hot topic in a number of recent news reports, and we’re seeing an increasing number of issuers and banks making efforts in expanding digital currency roadmaps. This article covers Visa’s crypto API pilot and the possible effects of this initiative
This month has been an exciting month for the cryptocurrency market. With Tesla buying $1.5B in bitcoin, and now payment giant Visa launching a pilot allowing customers to trade bitcoins, cryptocurrencies are closer than ever to becoming mainstream. In this video, we'll be covering this exciting partnership and the impact we expect it will have on the future of cryptocurrencies.
First Boulevard – formerly known as Tenth Bank – is a neo bank, which describes itself as a challenger for Black Americans based in the USA. The digitally native bank offers attractive perks such as early direct deposits and insurance by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
This project will serve as a key first step in supporting API capabilities that help more Visa clients access and integrate crypto features into their product offerings such as trading, staking, and financing. The pilot is anticipated to launch later this year.
This announcement has received lots of positive reactions from many people within the Fintech industry. And many are predicting that cryptocurrency will be accepted by more companies and merchants.
Visa has announced advancing its digital currency strategy in 2020. And the development of Visa’s crypto APIs just marks the next phase of Visa’s strategy, focused on expanding the company’s role as a ”network-of-networks”.
In the press release, Visa emphasized that they are committed to embedding inclusion into their partnership strategy, and that prioritizing FirstBoulevard is just one of the steps it took to level out the playing field when it comes to accessing new technologies.
Speaking of payment giants, MasterCard also announced that it‘s preparing for the future of crypto and payments. The credit card company said it doesn't plan to back all cryptocurrencies, but cited the recent run-up in Bitcoin's price as a reason for entering the field.
Now knowing that payment giant Visa is investing in making cryptocurrency more accessible, it’s not hard to see that there is a promising future for digital currencies as this is an enormous step towards normalizing digital currencies. And that many more developments in making digital assets more accessible for everyone are just around the corner. What is particularly interesting about this partnership is that Visa prioritized FirstBoulevard which is focused on an underserved market, while the cryptocurrency market is also underserved. We certainly expect more banks to follow to connect to Visa’s infrastructure. Are you more likely to invest in cryptocurrency when Visa is the regulator?
Among many other industries, the metaverse has sparked a desire among financial innovators to learn how FinTechs and banks can provide financial services in this entirely new world. The Metaverse is about to create new business models that could lead to the emergence of crypto as a large-scale alternative financial system.
If you’ve even moderately kept an eye on any payments related news source, there’s no way you have not been bombarded with the Buy Now Pay Later craze in 2021. Almost all the widely known payment players in the field who could partake in the BNPL craze… actually did. We are quite sure that you have heard about the likes of; Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay, but industry Giants such as Mastercard, Paypal, Visa, Square, Monzo, Revolut, Amazon, and even Walmart, are all offering BNPL options at checkout or are partnering with BNPL companies to offer this service to their customers. Even mighty Apple is climbing aboard.
Apple’s push to secure a spot in the payments ecosystem is still going strong. Or at least that’s the plan — executing on it may be … well, not that simple. This is because Apple has been making moves to build a network of merchants, among the most critical components of the payment value chain … with functionalities that are already out there in the market.