Payment company Visa is seeking to build “muscle memory” around settlements, with plans to allow customers to convert digital assets to fiat currencies on its platform, according to a presentation from the company’s crypto division head at StarkWare Sessions 2023, reported Coin Telegraph.
“We’ve been testing how to actually accept settlement payments from issuers in USDC starting on Ethereum and paying out in USDC on Ethereum. So, these are large value settlement payments,” Cuy Sheffield said during a fireside chat at the event.
According to the executive, global settlement with digital assets and fiat currencies is one of the avenues that Visa is investing in. He specifically stated:
“That’s been one of the areas where we want to build muscle memory. The same way that we can convert between dollars in euros on a cross-border transaction, we should be able to convert between digital tokenized dollars and traditional dollars.”
The payment giant has been exploring how to incorporate blockchain technology into its existing network to move money faster, but settlements still take place on the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, or SWIFT system, a not-for-profit cooperative society formed by European bankers with the purpose of facilitating secure and standardized transaction communication between its members.
“We set all over Swift, so we can’t move money as frequently as we’d like because there are a number of limitations that exist in those networks. And so, we’ve been experimenting, we publicly announced. We’ve been testing how to actually accept settlement payments [with stablecoins],” Sheffield explained.
Sheffield confirmed the company’s view of blockchain technology and digital assets. “We’re thinking a lot about how to take some of the value that Visa provides on existing bank rails, with existing forms of beyond in a rebuild that on top of blockchain rails, using stable boards. If we think there are huge opportunities in that area, it just kind of stays on emerging.”
