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Visa has announced that it is launching a new crypto advisory service, alongside new research which has found that 41 percent of UK adults either use cryptocurrencies or view them positively.
2021 has, inadvertently it seems, very much become the year of crypto.
From the record-breaking value of crypto-assets such as Bitcoin to the almost weekly onslaught of regulatory papers and interventions, it has become a space where financial firms have switched from ignore to explore.
Card giant Visa, which has been going on its own crypto journey of late, has now staked its own credentials to this brave new world with its announcement that it will be launching a crypto advisory service.
This will sit within Visa Consulting & Analytics, the payments consulting advisory arm of the company.
This follows news in March this year that the company will enable settlement of payment transactions in USD Coin.
Both Visa and Mastercard made commitments in early 2021 to add cryptocurrencies to their networks, which is far cry from fears in 2018 that Visa would impose a blanket ban on crypto-partnerships.
Alfred Kelly, Visa’s chief executive, said at the time that the company “will not process cryptocurrency-based transactions” as it does not see the likes of Bitcoin as a “payment system player”.
Visa currently works with 60 crypto platforms, and its network of consultants and product experts stand ready to help financial institutions evaluate the crypto opportunities, develop concrete strategies, and pilot new user experiences and innovations like crypto rewards programmes and central bank digital currency (CBDC) integrated consumer wallets.
Earlier this year, Visa was one of the three winners of Singapore’s Global CBDC Challenge, via a partnership with blockchain company ConsenSys.
“We’ve seen a material shift in our clients’ mindset in the last year, from a desire to explore and experiment with crypto, to actually building a strategy and product roadmap,” said Claudio Di Nella, head of Visa Consulting & Analytics, in a press statement.
Survey shows rising consumer interest in crypto
The international card scheme has also published a new research report, focusing on attitudes towards crypto-assets.
The survey compiles the stances of 6,000 financial decision-makers across eight markets, including the UK, Germany and the US.
The survey found that the constant crypto headlines are having an impact on consumers: 92 percent of UK respondents, as well as 94 percent globally, have an awareness of crypto-assets.
In addition, approximately one quarter, or 27 percent, of crypto-aware adults surveyed in the UK already own or use cryptocurrency, while the majority of that group, 58 percent, said their use has increased in the past year.
Engagement, however, is highest in emerging markets. An average of 37 percent of crypto-aware adults surveyed in emerging markets use or own crypto compared with 29 percent in developed markets.
However, these usage and ownership numbers seem very high. Combining awareness responses with ownership and usage numbers for the UK, this would effectively mean that around a quarter of adults in the UK own or use cryptocurrency, which seems highly unlikely.
Recent research from the Financial Conduct Authority, for example, estimated that around 2.3m adults, or 4.4 percent of the UK adult population, own cryptocurrency.
The Visa survey also says that among crypto-owners in the UK, 78 percent expressed an interest in crypto-linked cards.
This would allow consumers to convert and spend crypto with merchants in the same way that debit and credit cards are currently used.
Some 85 percent, meanwhile, are interested in crypto rewards, which would allow prospective card users to earn crypto as a reward for their card spending.
