Visa’s Chief Executive Officer, AI Kelly, has given Ripple (XRP) another reason to continue in its push to provide instant cross-border transactions.
At a recent investor conference held in New York, Kelly said he does not see the need for faster payment transfers, quipping, “Does the consumer really need the funds that much fast?” . Surprisingly, Visa, being one of the largest payment processors in the world, should concentrate on providing faster cross-border transactions.
There’s a Reason behind It
However, Kelly is ready to support his views:
“Some of these systems are not as reliable, not as robust and very unfortunately don’t have the same protections. If I now have a dispute with you over it and there needs to be some element of charge-back, how’s that going to work? With great difficulty.”
The CEO’s sentiments come roughly five months after Visa spent $250 million to acquire a British payments firm, Earthport, which has a long-standing partnership with Ripple. Earthport specializes in facilitating cross-border transactions for financial institutions. Notably, at the time of the acquisition, Visa was set to enhance its cross-border payments services. Earthport’s customers include Bank of America, Japan Post Bank, Payoneer, Ripple, TransferWise, and Hyperwallet.
According to Jenny Surane, a finance reporter at Bloomberg News:
“Visa’s CEO isn’t buying into the hype around faster payments even though some of its biggest banking partners continue to push the technology here in the U.S.”
Visa Pulls Out, Its Partners and Competitors Dive In
Unfortunately, as Visa pulls out of the quest for faster payments, some of its partners are already exploring ways to provide faster payments. For example, Bank of America is part of the Clearing House association that has been trying to facilitate real-time payments since 2017. JP Morgan Chase is also a member of the association.
Additionally, MasterCard, Visa’s direct competitor, has already started exploring ways to provide instant cross-border payments. As a result, Kelly’s utterances are viewed by some as the start of Visa’s end. For instance, a Twitter user, The_Rippening, while replying to Surane, said:
“Nothing is too big to fail. Gold wasn’t too big to fail as a currency. Sears wasn’t too big to fail as a retailer. Facebook wasn’t too big to fail as a social media platform, and VISA isn’t 2 big 2 fail if they fall behind in this technological revolution. Ignore at your peril.”
Faster Payments, Quality Life
But, Visa fails to acknowledge that the technological revolution has led people to rely on remittances. Therefore, “getting funds faster is critical to a quality life.”
Ripple (XRP) is already miles away in providing faster and cheaper payments across borders. And, if such an option exists, XRP_Anderson opines, saying:
“The consumer should have the option to choose. Perhaps the VISA CEO doesn’t understand that his job is to please consumers. It is not about what they ‘need’ it’s what they ‘want’”
Additionally, Ipinky77 tweeted:
“The big guys always tell you one thing and do the opposite themselves. The [one thing] maybe most underestimated thing RippleNet offers is: less risk. As settlement and payment goes in the same step.”
If VISA falls off the race for faster payments, then Ripple (XRP) will be left to battle MasterCard and PayPal.
