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- Visa has taken aboard the first cryptocurrency company ever, Coinbase.
- The announcement of Coinbase’s membership into Visa’s principle panel of partners was announced back in December 2019, but it wasn’t unveiled until today.
- Coinbase holds this ability, it has stated that it doesn’t plan on releasing debit cards for other companies anytime shortly.
Financial services giant Visa has taken aboard the first cryptocurrency company ever, Coinbase. Coinbase to enable cryptocurrency transactions around the globe. The announcement of Coinbase’s membership into Visa’s principle panel of partners was announced back in December 2019, but it wasn’t unveiled until today.
This new partnership allows for Coinbase customer’s cryptocurrencies to be directly used with merchants wherever Visa is accepted all across the globe.
Coinbase stands to be the first cryptocurrency company that is issuing certified debit cards for cryptocurrency payments. And they also are the first to have the power to issue debit cards for other cryptocurrency companies too.
Although Coinbase holds this ability, it has stated that it doesn’t plan on releasing debit cards for other companies anytime shortly. Visa themselves won’t be taking in any cryptocurrencies, and all the transactions will go through Coinbase’s exchange for transactions.
This also marks a new financial income stream for Coinbase since debit card accessibility to cryptocurrency holdings is sure to increase the usage of crypto for everyday transactions.
This is accelerated by the presence of Visa which already has one of the largest payment networks in the world, enabling users to make crypto payments by directly converting crypto-to-fiat at merchants even if they don’t accept crypto.
This is going to be a game-changer for cryptocurrency usage volumes since one of the biggest hurdles in the path of using crypto for daily payments was the lack of direct liquidity at a point of sale. CEO of Coinbase UK, Zeeshan Feroz says,
The card is going to be managed by Coinbase’s UK subsidiary and will be released in 29 countries including Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, France, and the UK later in 2020
