Visa acquires RippleNet member Currencycloud

Visa has announced the acquisition of RippleNet member Currencycloud for $950 million [£700 million].

As per Visa, the acquisition is aimed at providing transparency, flexibility, and control during international payments for businesses and other clients handling multiple currencies. This acquisition will help the digital payments provider offer its clients innovative foreign exchange solutions for cross-border payments.

The two companies had earlier signed a definitive agreement in July and now have reached completion of the acquisition. Visa noted in a press release,

“The acquisition builds on an existing strategic partnership between Currencycloud and Visa. Currencycloud’s cloud-based platform already supports over 500 banking and technology clients with reach in over 180 countries and will continue to serve and support its customers and partners across the industry.”

Visa has been taking pro-crypto steps and in its latest step, the pioneer of digital payments launched a Global Crypto Advisory to assist its clients on the crypto journey. It was not just exciting but a need for Visa to serve the crypto community as data suggested nearly 40% of crypto owners would switch primary banks to one that offers crypto products.

The head of the crypto division at Visa, Cuy Sheffield spoke highly about crypto’s potential and the evolving ecosystem around it. No wonder, Visa’s work on crypto has grown dramatically.

Sheffield noted,

“At Visa, the scale and scope of our work in crypto has grown dramatically. The number of people cross-functionally at Visa working on crypto in some capacity is now in the hundreds – up from just a handful of employees. And we’ve more than doubled our number of partnerships with crypto platforms in the last 18 months – up to 60 partnerships today.”

The head of crypto also talked about the changing trend regarding crypto awareness in the market and stated an increasing number of users delving into this asset group. Visa was responsible for processing over $3.5 billion on its crypto-linked card programs, which was not even in existence in a meaningful way a year ago.

This offered an insight into the changing behaviors of the people and as per Visa it will “continue to support the crypto ecosystem in several ways.”