Crypto: strategic partnership Visa-Wirex – The Cryptonomist

Visa and Wirex sign a new strategic, long-term partnership, bringing together the best of payments and crypto. Crypto is here to stay, and this is demonstrated by innovative and reliable partnerships between respected companies such as these.

In 2014, Wirex launched the first crypto debit card with Visa, becoming a core member of Visa in Europe in 2020. Now, the partnership is at a higher level through accepting Wirex’s membership with Visa in the UK and APAC area.

With over 5 million customers, Wirex has already achieved a huge milestone. However, with this new partnership, it aims to grow in these regions, including direct card issuing and support in the development of unique, forward-looking products, enabling more people to access the benefits of cryptocurrency in their everyday lives.

Wirex becomes global partner of Visa: key move for the crypto world

As anticipated, Wirex, a leading crypto payments platform, has signed a long-term strategic global partnership with Visa‘s network of payments companies.

The partnership aims to make it a member of Visa in APAC and the UK.

A factor that will enable Wirex to directly issue encrypted debit and prepaid cards in over forty countries. The agreement between Wirex and Visa will support further collaboration in major markets, including APAC, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States.

Joining Visa enables Wirex to offer innovative new products to use cryptocurrencies in everyday life, improve the user experience, and pilot new blockchain initiatives.

Wirex’s largest customer base is in the UK, with rapid growth in APAC, having been a finalist for the SFF Global Fintech Awards at the Singapore Fintech Festival in November last year. It is hoped that this partnership will continue to help them enable everyone to access the benefits of cryptocurrencies.

In any case, the announcement builds on the existing relationship between the two companies. As reported above, in 2015, Wirex was the first company in the world to develop a cryptocurrency-enabled card, enabling users to buy, hold, trade, sell multiple traditional and cryptocurrencies and spend at more than 80 million locations where Visa is accepted.

Customers benefit from real-time point-of-sale conversions, exclusive interbank and OTC exchange rates, free international ATM withdrawals, zero monthly fees, free fiat-fiat exchanges, and Cryptoback rewards of up to 8% per purchase.

Statements about the Visa-Wirex partnership: crypto in everyday life

Svyatoslav Garal, regional managing director of Wirex APAC, on the new partnership said:

“It’s great to strengthen our partnership with Visa, who have played an important role in allowing us to bridge the gap between the traditional and digital economies. Visa’s proven commitment to safety, security and innovation will help us to continue developing a next-generation app and card.”

On the other hand, Matt Wood, Head of Digital Partnerships, Asia Pacific, Visa, commented:

“Visa wants to bring more payment options to consumers by connecting digital currencies with our network of banks and merchants. We’re excited that Wirex is expanding their focus on Asia Pacific, making it easy and seamless for people to spend their crypto balance at the millions of merchants that accept Visa in the region.”

In any case, plans for the future are looking bright. Indeed, Wirex will continue to work closely with Visa to expand services and launch their card program worldwide. In the coming weeks, Wirex will announce another significant card issuing partnership in Australia.

Visa’s plans regarding stablecoins and digital assets

Payments giant Visa plans to introduce a new feature allowing customers to convert digital assets into fiat money. This was revealed by the head of the company’s crypto division during the StarkWare Sessions 2023 conference.

Apparently, Visa has already conducted tests regarding USDC transfers on the Ethereum network. To be clear, we are talking about large settlements.

Indeed, the executive revealed that global payments with digital assets and fiat currencies is one of the areas in which Visa is investing. In other words, the goal is, much in the same way that cross-border transactions are converted from dollars to euros, it will be possible to be able to convert between digital tokenized dollars and traditional dollars.

Visa is exploring ways to integrate blockchain technology into its payment network so that it can move money more quickly and efficiently.

However, international settlements still take place on the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) system, a network created and operated by banks to simplify exchanges.