Leading financial services company Visa has started offering consultation and advisory services to help its clients venture into the crypto-verse. A report unveiled this news earlier today, noting that the firm’s crypto advisory services are under its consulting and analytics division. Reportedly, Visa intends to offer these services to institutional and retail investors.
According to the report, the new service offering will help clients get acquainted with crypto and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Visa noted that the service is already up and running, and American bank UMB has already embraced this offering.
This offering marks Visa’s latest move towards bolstering its crypto ambitions. Per Nikola Plecas, Visa’s European Crypto Lead, the company’s crypto-linked card projects processed $3.5 billion in transactions between October 1, 2020, and September 30, 2021.
Apart from crypto-linked cards, the leading payment processor is developing products that focus on stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Visa also dipped its toes in the NFT space after purchasing CryptoPunk #7610 for $150,000 in ETH.
Explaining Visa’s success in the nascent digital asset class, Plecas said crypto exchanges have millions, or in some cases tens of millions, of users that leverage its crypto-linked cards for payments. He added that Visa allows cardholders to spend crypto at over 80 million merchants across the globe. In doing so, the firm offers crypto adopters a seamless way to spend their crypto.
Embracing crypto to stay relevant
Visa’s crypto efforts are also part of its fight to remain relevant. The maturing crypto sector has introduced new players in the payment processing industry, forcing companies like Visa and its rival Mastercard to change strategies. New trends like open banking, which seeks to reveal consumer bank information and payment capabilities to rival FinTechs, also put Visa at a disadvantage.
Visa is also facing pressure from e-commerce companies like Amazon, which said it would stop accepting Visa credit cards in the UK due to high costs in the past month. Amazon also pushed its Australian and Singaporean customers to avoid using their Visa cards by adding a 0.5% surcharge for all purchases made via Visa credit cards.
With such changes in the industry it has dominated for a long time, Visa believes crypto is a way out. This outlook explains why the company is actively embracing the nascent digital asset class.
Plecas concluded that,
Crypto for us is a huge new vertical and growth opportunity. And we will be continuing to focus on growing this business moving forward.
