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Visa launches global AI advisory practice focused on generative systems

November 8, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Visa’s new artificial intelligence advisory practice will leverage more than 1,000 analysts and consultants around the globe.

Visa announced the launch of its new global artificial intelligence advisory practice on Nov. 8. The consultation service will be part of Visa Consulting & Analytics (VCA) and, according to a press release, focus on “providing actionable insights and recommendations to empower clients to unlock the potential of AI and utilize generative AI.”

Citing its “30-year AI legacy,” Visa announced the new practice alongside a range of new services related to empowering clients to understand the potential role of generative AI at the enterprise level.

Using 30 years of knowledge and experience, Visa is launching an AI Advisory Practice, a service that will help clients tap into the power of #AI and #genAI to improve payments experiences and help supercharge growth. Learn more: https://t.co/CROI8Sqra4
#VisaConsultingAnalytics pic.twitter.com/RAgjAYgrnU
— VisaNews (@VisaNews) November 8, 2023

The service will be tended by VCA’s global network of “over 1,000 consultants, data scientists and product experts in 75 offices on six continents,” according to the press release.

Carl Rutstein, global head of advisory services at Visa, said the practice will offer a full suite of client services:

“AI is not just reshaping industries worldwide – it’s revolutionizing them, and the payments sector is at the forefront of this transformation. Visa doesn’t just use AI to help improve payment experiences – our Advisory business is also harnessing it to empower our clients to grow and redefine how they serve their own customers through acquisition, engagement, retention, and risk management.”

This news comes on the heels of a $100 million AI venture fund launched by the company on Oct. 2. As Cointelegraph reported, the fund is set up to support innovation and development in the generative AI space.

Generative AI is a burgeoning sector of machine learning that involves the use of models designed to produce human-like content such as text, images, audio or video files within the constraints of a specific training set. The most popular models, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude 2, have been widely adopted for personal and enterprise use.

Binance shutting down European Visa debit card in December

October 20, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Binance

Mastercard ended its partnership in Latin America and Bahrain with Binance in September, possibly due to the regulatory environment.

Binance Visa debit card services will close down in the European Economic Area (EEA) on December 20, according to an announcement by the cryptocurrency exchange on Oct. 20. Binance accounts will be unaffected.

According to a Binance letter to customers posted online, the Binance card issuer, Finansinės paslaugos “Contis” — or Contis Financial Services — will stop issuing the card. Contis is a Lithuanian electronic money institution and currency exchange operator owned by German banking-as-a-service platform Solaris Group, which is active in 30 European countries.

The Binance Visa debit card converts crypto in users’ Binance accounts into local currencies, thus allowing them to use crypto to pay for purchases in stores and online. The EEA comprises all 27 European Union member states and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

And here goes the #Binance Visa Debit Card!

First Paysafe providing EUR on/offboarding, now Contis providing the debit card, what's next? pic.twitter.com/e7EF7G7CVN
— Michael ⚡️S⚡️ (@M_affirmed) October 20, 2023

The Binance Visa debit card was introduced in the EEA in September 2020. At the time, there were plans to introduce Binance cards in Russia and potentially the United States as well. A Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph in a statement:

"Although Binance users from around the world have enjoyed using [the Binance Visa debit] Card to make day-to-day payments with crypto assets, only around 1% of our users are impacted by this change."

The closure of the Binance Visa service is the latest in a string of setbacks for Binance. The end of Binance Visa card services was announced a day after the exchange restored euro deposits and withdrawals, which had been unavailable for a month after payments processor Paysafe dropped the exchange. Binance is still not onboarding new users in the United Kingdom due to the loss of a third-party service provider.

Binance.US suspended U.S. dollar deposits in June and warned that withdrawals would also be suspended. It partnered with MoonPay to enable U.S. users to buy Tether (USDT) on the exchange. It announced earlier this week that U.S. customers could withdraw dollars from their accounts by converting the fiat into stablecoin.

Mastercard ended its partnership with Binance in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Bahrain in September. At the time, regulatory scrutiny was suggested as the motivation for the breakup.

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Crypto cards facilitated $3B payment volume post 2021 exchange deals – Visa VP

October 5, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Crypto cards facilitated B payment volume post 2021 exchange deals - Visa VP

Coin Telegraph

Visa’s CEMEA head of innovation and design Akshay Chopra reveals that the company’s partnership with cryptocurrency exchanges has facilitated billions of dollars in payment volumes.

The integration of conventional payment cards into cryptocurrency exchange offerings is playing a crucial role in driving adoption of digital assets, according to a VISA executive.

Speaking to Cointelegraph reporter Ezra Reguerra during a panel at the Blockchain Economy Dubai Summit, VISA’s VP head of Innovation & Design Akshay Chopra highlighted the role that Visa cards have played as a bridge between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies in recent years.

Cointelegraph's Ezra Reguerra (left) on stage with VISA’s VP head of Innovation & Design Akshay Chopra and Accenture's CBDC & digital assets associate director Vladimir Nikolenko.

According to Chopra, using cryptocurrencies as a means of payment for everyday items like a cup of coffee at a cafe is still not truly ubiquitous. In an effort to tackle this challenge, Visa partnered with 75 of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in 2021 to allow them to issue Visa cards.

This then opened up a network of some 80 million Visa merchants that could by extension serve customers that prefer to use cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, as Chopra tells Reguerra:

“Building that bridge alone in 2021, and these numbers haven’t really been made public, facilitated $3 billion of payment volume.”

Chopra highlighted this as one of a number of opportunities for conventional financial institutions to tap into with the wider Web3 ecosystem.

Payments settlement between financial institutions remains another avenue that is ripe for disruption and innovation through blockchain-based solutions. Chopra says existing protocols like the SWIFT payment system still have limitations, including not being fully functional 24 hours a day:

“Banks have trillions of dollars of transactions with each other at the end of the day but there is a cut-off time where you simply cannot transact internationally. It’s a big pain point and its also expensive and inefficient.

Akshay highlights a pilot carried out with Circle using USD Coin (USDC) enabling a number of cryptocurrency exchange partners to settle payments with USDC at the end of a given day:

“It’s cheaper than traditional methods, it happens 24/7 and it's innovative. You send USDC balance and Visa custodies the funds on the backend of the Ethereum blockchain.”

Regulations remain a hurdle for mainstream financial institutions to truly tap into blockchain technology and cryptocurrency-based payments. However Akshay believes that progressive regulatory environments in jurisdictions like the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Akshay believes that proactive regulatory approaches have been more beneficial to industry participants when compared to reactive regulations in countries like the United States.

“When they set up regulatory frameworks, they invited the industry to tale about what it needs, but also what the future might look like in a few years so that regulations are developed well ahead of time."

Visa made headlines in April 2023 with the launch of a crypto product roadmap that aims to drive adoption of stablecoin and public blockchain payments by mainstream financial institutions.

The company is also set to invest $100 million to explore innovative AI-powered products and solutions focused on payments and commerce through Visa Ventures.

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Future of payments: Visa to invest $100M in generative AI

October 3, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Future of payments: Visa to invest 0M in generative AI

Coin Telegraph

Visa says it was one of the first firms in the world to pioneer AI in payments, deploying AI-based technology for risk and fraud management in 1993.

Global payment giant Visa is raising its bet on artificial intelligence (AI) in commerce and settlements by setting up a new fund to invest in generative AI ventures.

Visa on Oct. 2 announced a new $100 million generative AI initiative to invest in companies focused on developing generative AI technologies and applications related to commerce and payments.

The investment will be curated by Visa’s global corporate investment arm, Visa Ventures, which has been working on supporting innovation in payments and commerce since 2007.

Generative AI is a type of AI technology that can produce various types of content, including text, imagery, audio and synthetic data. Major AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard show the capabilities of generative AI to comprehend and produce human-like writing.

According to Visa’s chief product and strategy officer Jack Forestell, generative AI has a promising future in the financial world. He said:

“While much of generative AI so far has been focused on tasks and content creation, this technology will soon not only reshape how we live and work, but it will also meaningfully change commerce in ways we need to understand.”

Visa’s latest move into generative AI comes on the heels of significant efforts to apply AI technology in the company’s ecosystem.

Visa says it was one of the first firms in the world to pioneer AI use in payments back in 1993, deploying AI-based technology for risk and fraud management. In 2022, Visa’s real-time payment fraud monitoring solution, Visa Advanced Authorization, reportedly helped prevent an estimated $27 billion in fraud.

In 2021, Visa also introduced VisaNet +AI, a suite of AI-based services focused on fixing delays and confusion with managing account balances and other issues of daily settlement for financial institutions.

Some of the tools in the VisaNet +AI suite include Smarter Stand-In Processing, which aims to improve payment experiences during outages by mirroring issuer approval decisions. Other such products include Smarter Posting, which helps enable faster consumer payment experiences and reduce confusion from posting delays.

Besides actively investing in AI, Visa has also been bullish on using cryptocurrency technology in payments. In April 2021, Visa shared plans for a new crypto product that is designed to drive mainstream adoption of public blockchain networks and stablecoin payments.

Collect this article as an NFT to preserve this moment in history and show your support for independent journalism in the crypto space.

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Digital yuan app adds prepaid Mastercard Visa top-ups for tourists

September 25, 2023 Coin Telegraph

China

The e-CNY app now allows tourists to top-up their wallets using Mastercard and Visa payments with a “recharge first and use later” option.

Tourists planning to visit the People’s Republic of China can now pre-charge their digital yuan wallets using Visa and Mastercard payment options as the nation continues to update the mobile app powering its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot.

The e-CNY app, which is still in its pilot version, is available to iOS and China-based Google Play Store users. The application serves individual users, allowing them to open digital yuan wallets to use e-CNY.

As per the latest iOS app update published on Sept. 22, version 1.1.1 supports its top-up service with international card options.

*The latest version of e-CNY app on the Apple App Store introduces the top-up service for international cards. Source: e-CNY app*

According to a number of local Chinese news outlets, the latest version of the e-CNY app coincides with the start of the Asian Games.

*A tutorial for foreign users outlining the process of signing up using an international number. Source: e-CNY app.*

China has extensively trialed using the digital yuan as a payment option for foreigners visiting the country. According to Yicai, the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 marked the beginning of the CBDC pilot being open for tourists as a means to transact with local merchants using e-CNY.

Inbound tourists are reportedly able to make use of overseas mobile numbers to register and open e-CNY wallets and make use of the recharge wallet feature, which now supports Visa and Mastercard payments.

As Cointelegraph recently reported, China is making moves to ensure that the digital yuan is available as a payment option for all retail payment scenarios. This would make the digital yuan a ubiquitous payment method in China between retail users and merchants.

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Visa