Visa is one of the most widely known financial companies in the world. It works specifically in the payments front, and it has achieved everything that such an enterprise may shoot for. However, the firm wants more, and is working to diversify its offerings catalog.
The Reuters news agency reported this week, precisely on Thursday, December 27th, that the American payment services company will acquire Earthport Plc, a network that specializes in the performance of cross-border payments. Earthport is a partner of the Ripple.
Earthport, an International Payments Provider
Earthport has its headquarters in London, England. It has been around since 1997 and it can be defined as a financial services company that provides the ability to make cross-border to all kinds of financial institutions, including banks. It is a partner of Ripple, the tech firm, and the nature of the pact is oriented to integrate the Ripple protocol into Earthport’s network with the intention of offering international payments.
The report states that the purchase of Earthport by Visa will be closed for a sum around $251 million (£198 million.) Back in 2016, Earthport developed an application programming interface that connected banks to the Ripple protocol at the time of processing international payments, which could help financial institutions cope with obstacles regarding budget, technology, and compliance.
Visa and the Benefits of Cryptography
Visa has been toying with the idea of developing and readying its Visa B2B Connect blockchain-powered digital ID system since October. The tool, which would enable cross-border payments, was intended to be made available in the first three months of 2019. The modus operandi is simple: the approach is about tokenizing critical business data to provide them with a unique cryptographic identifier to keep track and record each transaction performed within the platform. Among the data bits that can be considered “sensitive” are account numbers and banking details.
Visa has been looking for solutions to provide a faster, efficient, and more stable service for quite some time now. In June 2018, the company stated that card payments were enduring disruptions in some European countries, including the Great Britain. The Payment Systems Regulator stressed that the issue was seen only in Visa card transactions. Regarding the matter, the firm said via Twitter that they were “investigating the cause and working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation.”
A little bit about Visa
Having been founded in 1958, Visa has 60 years of experience in its field. It is an American multinational payment services company with headquarters in Foster City, California, the United States. It provides a platform for electronic funds transfers in all continents except for Antarctica.
The company does not directly offer its service to end customs: instead, it provides banks and financial institutions with debit, credit, prepaid, and cash-access programs that they, in turn, offer to their respective clients. The famous firm has over 15,000 employees around the world, and had revenue of $18.358 billion in 2017.
By Andres Chavez
