Visa Announces Partnership with Fintech Startup Tala To Accelerate Crypto Adoption in Emerging Markets
Visa has announced a new partnership with a digital financial services provider, Tala, in emerging markets. This partnership’s main aim is to provide easier access to cryptocurrencies for underbanked consumers. They’ll start their effort of driving crypto adoption in emerging markets with USD Coin (USDC), which is a stablecoin. It is backed by the US Dollar and governed by the Centre Consortium. The best thing about USDC is that it is supported by a wide range of blockchains including Ethereum, Stellar, Solana, and Algorand.
Reports say that the customers of the Tala fintech startup will be able to access USDC in the digital wallet of Tala through the integration with Circle and Stellar. This Tala digital wallet not only supports the storage of assets but also supports functionalities of crypto-fiat exchange and cross-border transfer.
Visa’s partnership with Tala will provide the latter the ability to issue Visa cards, which will remain linked to the Tala wallet. This will enable the customers of Tala to spend their USD Coin balance at any of the 70 million merchant partners of Visa world over.
Visa’s crypto head, Cuy Sheffield, has said:
“We’ve been really interested to see how they could have the potential to help consumers in markets where they don’t have great access to financial services.”
As of 2020’s fourth quarter, World Bank estimates that the average percentage transaction fee for cross-border remittances is around 6.51%. With the partnership between Visa and Tala, the cross-border transaction fee is expected to decline significantly.
This is the first major partnership of the FinTech startup Tala. In its effort to drive its usability in the markets of developing countries, Tala has launched the Tala Rebuild Fund. It provides 6-month period loans to small businesses with essential services at a rate of 0% interest. In addition, the fintech startup has provided its customers in Kenya with COVID-19 medical insurance at a subsidized rate.
A leading cryptocurrency platform in Latin America, Bitso, has shown that the remittances fee between the U.S. and Mexico have been brought down to just 2.5–3%, way below that of the average 6.51% cross-border remittances currently. In fact, Bitso only charges a currency conversion rate up to 0.65%. No deposit or withdrawal fees are charged by the company.
The head of Visa’s crypto department, Cuy Sheffield, has said:
“We’ve been really interested to see how they could have the potential to help consumers in markets where they don’t have great access to financial services…By working with innovators like Tala mobile, Visa, Circle who share our vision that financial inclusion is a right, not a privilege, we can bring the benefits of tech to emerging markets & take a step closer to our mission of equitable access to the global financial system!”
Stellar (XLM) has started to react positively to this news. It has managed to break out of its 680-day range. In a tweet, a renowned crypto trader Pentoshi has tweeted saying:
“XLM beginning its breakout. There’s little to no resistance built because of the inefficiencies on the moves shown. Probably goes higher than people think because of the 680-day range. Holders outperform traders.”
He went on to say that in the short term, XLM will reach a new high. He went on to add:
“When something breaks out of a multi-year range. It tends to go much higher than people think.”
Benefit from experienced traders with copy trading on NapBots https://NapBots.com 1 week free trial ! Discover more than 20 strategies dedicated to crypto-currencies, on the most liquid pairs (BTC, ETH …).NapBots allow novices to trade crypto easily and help traders save a lot of time! Bots work tirelessly to scan the markets and navigate through volatility to try to capture profitable trends.
