Visa Partners with Circle To Enable USDC Payments

Visa has partnered with blockchain services enterprise Circle to facilitate USD Coin (USDC) based transactions with some of its credit cards. USD Coin is a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar.

Forbes article reads:

“After Circle itself graduates from Visa’s Fast Track program, likely sometime next year, Visa will issue a credit card that lets businesses send and receive USDC payments directly from any business using the card.”

Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s chief of crypto, said Forbes:

“This will be the first, corporate card that will allow businesses to be able to spend a balance of USDC.”

In the future, the partnership will pave way for USDC based trans-border transactions involving companies which are associated with Visa. The payments behemoth also entered into an agreement with BlockFi for launching a credit card that offers cashbacks in the form of Bitcoin (BTC).

In the past few days, 25 wallet providers have joined the company’s Fast Track program, paving way for Visa’s USDC initiative.

Sheffield further said:

“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.”

Crypto adoption has increased exponentially this year, fueled by PayPal’s crypto support on its platform. So far, only the US residents are allowed to purchase Bitcoin using PayPal’s platform.
Earlier in 2020, Coinbase obtained the ability to issue payment card by joining as a principal member of Visa.