Al Kelly, Visa CEO, Claims to be Moving Towards Crypto

During a Tuesday earnings call, Visa CEO Al Kelly addressed the payments giant’s crypto aspirations, describing the company as “highly well-positioned” to do so. Visa is pursuing a multi-pronged strategy in relation to bitcoin, stablecoins, and, on a longer time horizon, central bank digital currencies or CBDCs, as previously noted.

It’s a topic on which he’s previously spoken, including a podcast appearance this spring. He discussed such plans in the light of Visa’s role at the crossroads of new payment technologies. Kelly distinguished the various elements of the broader strategy during the Tuesday earnings call, citing the spending and purchasing of cryptocurrencies, crypto-related APIs for financial institutions, settlements through stablecoins, and CBDCs.

Al Kelly said in a call earlier, “So our focus is on five different opportunities that we see in this space and I would say that this is space that we are leaning into in a very big way and I think are extremely well-positioned.” Visa stated that it is in discussions with central banks about the implementation of CBDCs, implying that the payments company could play a role in the process.

Al Kelly said that they are talking to central banks about the criticality of the private or public partnership. The criticality of the acceptance because for these banks are digital currencies have high value. Everything is going in to have to both be secure in the minds of consumers. They have a long track record with and they could help with the same. Kelly claims that they have some form of utility.