Comment by tpmx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tpmx | Hacker News Reader

The actual press release has more information:

https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.rele...

It links to a blog post:

https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/blog/bdp/2021/03/26/dig...

Insanely wordy and very non-specific, but hopefully getting it straight from the horse's mouth is less confusing than reading someone else's misunderstandings.

"Visa is piloting the capability with Crypto.com, a Visa partner and one of the world’s largest crypto platforms, and plans to offer the USDC settlement capability to additional partners later this year."

The way I read this: They plan to later this year allow some Visa customers (via some bank partners to Visa) to pay their credit card bills using the USDC stablecoin, presumably via crypto.com.

Am I really understanding this correctly?

No, this wouldn't let consumers pay their bills in USDC, but rather allow banks and merchants to be paid in USDC.

Settlement is the process in which an acquirer "settles" up with Visa, which happens after a transaction is authorized[0]. The acquirer sends Visa a list of transactions and monetary amounts, Visa accepts this and forwards along money for the transactions to the acquiring bank.

Visa is saying that they are now sending USDC (over the blockchain? unclear.) instead of fiat currency over traditional banking rails.

Later this year, Visa will expand these capabilities to more acquirers/merchants.

[0]: This page explains more. https://financetrain.com/how-credit-card-transaction-process...

Ah. That makes more sense! Thanks.

Ok, but. Why.

> No, this wouldn't let consumers pay their bills in USDC, but rather allow banks and merchants to be paid in USDC.

I’m not sure, from the first link of the parent:

> Visa has launched a pilot that allows Crypto.com to send USDC to Visa to settle a portion of its obligations for the Crypto.com Visa card program.

Crypto.com is a Visa issuer, so if they can now settle with Visa by sending USDC, it logically means Crypto.com Visa card holder will be able directly use the USDC from their account (without converting them to fiat first).

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