From the inception of the crypto economy, the established banking and payment giants have been hostile towards the new market, and this hostility grew as the digital economy became bigger and bigger. VISA, the worldwide credit card giant, is also well known for its hostility towards Bitcoin .
On Monday, in an interview with CNBC at New York’s National Retail Federation conference, VISA CEO Alfred Kelly put forth his views on Bitcoin, the original digital coin and still the market leader.
Mr. Kelly said: “I don’t view it as a payment system player.”
He also made it clear that VISA does not welcome the new crypto economy and will not process cryptocurrency transactions.
“We at Visa won’t process transactions that are cryptocurrency-based. We will only process fiat currency-based transactions,” added the CEO.
Mr. Kelly believes that Bitcoin is more of a commodity than a payment system, and its prices are driven largely by speculation.
"My take is that bitcoin is much more today a commodity that somebody could invest in; and honestly, somewhat of a speculative commodity," said Mr. Kelly.
It should be noted that in spite of all the warnings from Wall Street giants and even governments, the crypto economy is attracting more and more enthusiasts. In 2017 only, Bitcoin soared over 1000 percent despite the coin’s loss of more than a quarter of its value in the last couple of days. The entire digital economy has seen tremendous growth in the last few years and now values more than half-a-trillion dollars.
By the end of 2017, VISA’s partnership with many cryptocurrency payment service providers clearly showed that the credit card giant is slowly accepting the nascent digital economy. But within the first week of 2018, VISA started to cut its ties with cryptocurrency firms due new restrictions on its Gibraltar-based issuer WaveCrest. VISA said that it had terminated WaveCrest’s services due to non-Compliance with its membership regulations, and that all of its Visa card programmes will be closed as a result.
