Visa Teams Up With FTX To Debut Debit Card In 40 Nations
- American multinational financial services giant Visa believes that the investors still want to spend their holdings and as a result has partnered with popular crypto exchange FTX.
- The goal of the partnership is to offer debit cards across 40 nations, with the primary focus on Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
- The cards, which are already available to the United States residents, will instantly connect to a user’s FTX cryptocurrency investment account.
Despite the ongoing crypto market which has resulted in a massive drop in cryptocurrency prices leading to “Buy the Dip” campaign, American multinational financial services giant Visa believes that the investors still want to spend their holdings.
According to the latest development, the company has partnered with the global exchange platform FTX to offer debit cards across 40 nations, with the primary focus on Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
The cards, which are already available to the United States residents, will instantly connect to a user’s FTX cryptocurrency investment account. Notably, the change enables customers to spend digital currencies without transferring them off from an exchange.
During an interview with CNBC, Visa CFO Vasant Prabhu noted the plummeting values of cryptocurrencies. However, he believes that there is still steady interest in crypto and stated:
“We don’t have a position as a company on what the value of cryptocurrency should be, or whether it’s a good thing in the long run — as long as people have things they want to buy, we want to facilitate it.”
The new partnership between FTX and Visa comes at a time when the price of Bitcoin and other digital tokens have gone down by more than half from their all-time highs in November. The largest cryptocurrency, which was trading at around $69,000 last year, is currently sitting near the $20,000 zone, according to BitcoinWisdom.
Commenting on the new collaboration, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried stated:
“There’s a decision you have to make as a traditional payments company: do you want to lean into this or do you want to fight against it? I respect the fact that many of them are leaning into it.”
Enabling card payments, according to SBF, is essential for the market to develop beyond its image as a speculative asset or, to some, a store of value. Because of the Visa collaboration, companies can now take cryptocurrency without developing their own proprietary technology. It is converted on the back end by Visa and FTX. “Everything is done behind the scenes,” Prabhu said.
The biggest opportunity, according to both Chief executives, is in emerging nations, where access to digital assets is more alluring than it could be in the United States because of inflation and currency volatility.
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
