Visa and Consensys bridge the gap between MNBC and traditional networks

Payment giant Visa has found a new partner, Consensys, with whom it hopes to establish itself as a key player in the MNBC market. This partnership is another step in an already well advanced strategy by Visa to avoid being disrupted by ongoing innovation in the payment world.

FACTS

• Cryptographic software developer Consensys is now joining the Visa Partner Programme. Their joint work will focus on creating a bridge between existing payment networks and MNBC networks.

• The aim is to develop a new infrastructure that can help central banks and traditional financial institutions come together in a single interoperable space to create simple, connected services between the two networks.

• These services could, for example, take the form of a wallet or a payment card.

• Visa and Consensys are currently consulting with central banks around the world to validate this model.

• The new Visa and Consensys infrastructure is expected to be available next spring.

CHALLENGES

• A head start: The whole point of this merger between Visa and Consensys is also to stay one step ahead of its main historical competitor: MasterCard. MasterCard and Consensys had announced a collaboration last December and VIsa's announcement is now a response to this.

• Taking it to the next level: In October 2021, Visa said it wanted to take on the task of interoperability of crypto-currencies. At the time, it was banking on a concept developed by its teams and dubbed the "Universal Payment Channel" (UPC), to create gateways between Central Banks' Digital Currencies, in order to promote the interoperability of chains. Today, it is between MNBC and traditional payment networks that Visa is committed to creating bridges, raising its ambitions on the subject even higher.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• This is not Visa's first venture into the MNBC and crypto-currency market. The payment giant was an expert on the sector last December, when it revealed its new Digital Currency ambitions for central banks at the end of 2020.

• But crypto-currencies are not the only area of interest for Visa when it comes to new payment interfaces. Visa is also very interested in cloud-based solutions and last December presented a new platform, Visa Acceptance Cloud (VAC), which is expected to revolutionise the point-of-sale payment experience. It aims to enable acquirers, payment service providers, Point Of Sale (POS) system manufacturers, and Internet of Things (IoT) players to migrate their payment processing software, currently embedded in every hardware device, to the Cloud, to ensure universal accessibility.