A milestone
@visa
today as we announce the first transactions settled w/ USDC.
Visa already moves billions of $$ across 200 markets in 160 currencies; now we can do so in any currency form factor.
Here's a sample settlement file with our digital currency capabilities:
I'm back in the CEO seat.
After 7 years
@Visa
leading Fintech, Crypto and Loyalty, I'm excited to join
@DriveWealth
, a category defining Fintech infrastructure company.
Payroll is the most important “entry point” to Financial Services today
With >$100B in weekly earnings, Payroll begets many downstream services (cards, savings, investing).
At same time worker expectations have changed. A crop Fintech cos are capitalizing on these trends 1/6
I paid ~$100 to draw cash from an ATM in Europe.
Welcome to “Dynamic Currency Conversion”, the worst consumer experience in all of digital payments.
In my case, the ATM charged an 11% markup on my 800 euro withdrawal, netting $96 in charges.
Why does DCC exist?
@Visa
is an "authorization network" and not a payment network
Merchants pay for realtime auth, security & guaranteed payment. Settlement (post transaction) is when Visa moves $$ from issuers to merchants and can happen on wires, ACH & now crypto rails
🙌 Network of networks
1/ We are excited to announce that Visa has expanded our stablecoin settlement capabilities to merchant acquirers launching pilots with
@Worldpay_Global
and
@Nuvei
utilizing the Solana blockchain
And here's a great write-up about how we build this capability, why we chose USDC as the initial test case and how we think this can expand to Central Bank Digital Currencies.
Visa is evolving. On earnings call, we talked being the leading network for digital currency wallets (w/ 35 signed partners). Today, we share a bit more about our strategy to make Visa a trusted bridge between FI's and Bitcoin.
"settlement" is how funds move from your bank (actually the bank that funded the coffee) to the merchant (who served the coffee).
There are >100B transactions that Visa reconciles every year; now some of those reconciliations will move from bank wires to the Ethereum blockchain
Crypto and Fintech are merging.
Lending products such as
@cryptocom
’s Spending Power are a glimpse of this future: consumers access credit which is secured against crypto assets and of course spend is enabled via
@visa
card.
Excited to innovate alongside our partners!
The most overlooked rent collection in payments is the “all-in” pricing of modern payment companies like Stripe, PayPal and Shopify.
At 250 bps plus 30c, it’s roughly 200bps more the ave interchange for debit txns (most of ecomm volume).
Large merchants negotiate this rate.
The interchange fee for "covered debit transactions" (transactions made using debit cards issued by issuers with more than $10 billion in assets), decreased from 0.60% (of transaction value) in 2013 to 0.47% in 2022, while the share in total transaction volume remained stable at
Crypto is global. Fintech is local.
ETH & BTC operate the same in every country; USD shaped within local jurisdictions. Blockchains work the same everywhere. Payment networks are local.
A trend to watch as fintech/crypto merge and local regulation meets global standards.
1/ Today, I became a US citizen. It's been a 23 year journey filled with adventure, excitement and (like any good story) love. Some highlights and stats.
Playing around with Twitter’s new NFT profiles.
Seems like new product runway for Twitter if they add more capabilities ( and for example). Will be fun to watch!
ps: This is Aku from the genesis collection from
@Micah_Johnson3
1/ Techno-Optimist: Fintech Lens
I loved
@pmarca
's techo-optimist manifesto and it got me thinking about the progress & pessimism of the last 60 years of Fintech innovation.
Technology has dramatically improved every aspect of our financial lives and yet we often frame this
Happy 63rd Birthday
@Visa
BOA
1958 (Sept) BankAmericard launched
1966 BOA licenses to other banks
ASSOC (Dee Hock)
1970 NationalBank Americard (USA)
1973 iBanco (Int.)
1975 Visa brand launched
VISA Inc.
2007 Visa USA, Can, Int. IPO
2016 Visa Inc. purchases Visa EU
Gross vs net revenue is the biggest culprit in Fintech.
For B2B card spend platform
$1B in GMV
$20M in gross revenue (200 bps)
$5M-$8M in net revenue after processing costs and rev-share with partner
Usually $20M reported 🤷♀️
Not that it matters in the current environment, but there are a lot of busineses where gross profit dollars are really closer to revenue and people just ignore it.
Circle partnering with
@Visa
to issue the first corporate card linked to USDC balances.
Look forward to seeing how
@jerallaire
and the Circle team will enable new payment flows on these combined rails.
EXCLUSIVE: After two years of work, Visa is opening up its network to USDC, a digital dollar created by Circle Internet Financial and issued on the public ethereum blockchain: via
@ForbesCrypto
What is settlement? You can think of a Visa transaction in two parts (I'm simplifying):
"authorization" where you tap your card at a coffee shop regardless of currency, country or time-zone and your payment is instantly accepted.
You walk out with a latte
@patrick_oshag
@Visa
@Mastercard
Three stand out:
1. Cash (at $18T) remains biggest competitor
2. Most Fintech disrupters are built on visa/MC rails. For example, competitors such as AliPay, TenCent, Mpesa issue Visa credentials
3. B2B payments ($120T) barely on visa/MC rails
Who is in your Hall of Fame for profitability & efficiency in fintech & big-tech?
Visa tops the list: it’s business model is inherently efficient offloading all of the regulated financial operations to its clients (who lag near the bottom).
Meta, Google and Apple have wild
Professional update:
I am leaving
@DriveWealth
& working on something new in 2023. I have transitioned day-to-day responsibilities back to the founder & remain an advocate & shareholder.
This year, the Ramp team shipped a new feature every three days (including weekends).
Every day, over 1000 new users onboard to Ramp. It’s only day 1730.
I've admired the
@TransferWise
team since before I joined Visa, so it was terrific to ink this global commercial deal and work on our Cloud Connect product together. Here's a bit more about the collaboration 1/5
One the cool outcomes of new entrants into payments is the democratization of “insider” payment knowledge.
Both
@ModernTreasury
and
@finix
are expanding the tent for everyone.
Who else would you add to this list?
Anyone need an especially nerdy end-of-summer reading list?
We just published a set of payments primers: books, podcasts, articles, and blog posts compiled over the last two years. It's what we give new employees.
@rachelpike
has the top ten list:
We need Brex and Ramp for DAOs.
Software driven payments that are initiated on-chain but pay bills using a card credential.
Visa already accepts USDC as a settlement currency, but we need a bank to sponsor the DAO.
Visa Fintech Fast Track now has 140 companies participating:
📈 280% growth <1yr
🌎 Global: Safaricom (Africa) Konfio (Mexico), TurkCell (Europe)
🔧 >20 Enablement partners
These Fintechs are creating the new digital payment rails:
I held 8 H1B work permits during my 23 years from student citizen. During that time, I was an employee, founder and investor & worked alongside amazing people from all over the world. Suspending H1B hurts US innovation in profound ways.
2/ I applied for 8 H1B work permit visas, 3 F1 Student Visas and several B1/B2 visas. In all, I visited consulates in Johannesburg (6x), Ciudad Juarez and Sydney, Australia. Total legal and processing costs >$25k. Here's a snapshot from my US Citizenship petition.
A personal post: My brother-in-law Dominic Berardino passed away at 39.
We don't yet know what caused him to collapse, but we learned about true courage, love & community through the Hero Walk which honored him as he donated his organs to give others life
How Visa can unlock value from digital wallets is impressive:
Competitive networks (WeChat/AliPay/Paytm) enable cards in their app; formerly closed-loop wallets (GoJek/Rappi/MFS) issue Visa cards so their customers can pay anywhere Visa is accepted (60M+ merchants)
And now ..
Some personal news.
For the last 6 months I’ve focused on accelerating Visa’s engagement with Fintechs.
As an entrepreneur it’s fun to make the incredible resources and scale of Visa available to other CEO’s as we partner, grow and invest in these companies.
1/ 2
Learn how fintechs can leverage
@Visa
to create what's next in payments and hear from our Global Head of Fintech
@TerryAngelos
about how
@Visa
is supporting the next generation of payment innovation:
$ADYEN stock down 28% today.
Revenue grew 21% in 1H vs expectations of 40%. Seems North American customers moved volume or shifted services to lower cost choices.
1/7 Hundreds of incredible entrepreneurs have engaged in our Fintech Fast Track programs this year (up 3.6x YOY) and it’s a privilege to help them tackle new markets.
It also give us a view into some trends ...
Corporate cards are finally getting the kind of innovation and attention they deserve. $120T in B2B payments of which less than a few trillion is captured on cards ... and companies such as
@tryramp
and
@BankMercury
are re-thinking the entire experience.
In other news…I joined
@tryramp
leading up all things growth and I couldn’t be more excited to publicly share what we’ve been up to! is the first corporate card that helps companies reduce their burn by actively identifying areas of overspending (1/8)
It's hard to nudge the trajectory of a $500B market-cap co, but the
@visa
crypto team lead by
@cuysheffield
has done exactly that. Embracing how crypto intersects with existing financial partners, experimenting new rails at scale and having fun along the way. The TrialPay DNA at
A good comparison of Adyen, Stripe and Braintree.
If you agree with
@chamath
’s race to the bottom thesis, Braintree well positioned to capture share with the lowest take rate (15-20 bps)
But enterprise payments is complex: auth rates often matter more than cost
Demystifying the Modern Acquirers $Stripe $ADYEN $PYPL Braintree in charts:
Volume & Growth: Braintree growing the fastest, while $Stripe & $ADYEN are settling in the 20% range
Together they process $2T globally in payments (a 50%+ CAGR since 2020). They've claimed ~30% of US
As a
@visa
alum, I’ve gotta say that
@Mastercard
’s sponsorship of the World Cup Cricket was very smart. Likely 1B in viewership numbers (500M by 35th game) and a concentration in critical emerging markets where brand wars are malleable. Congrats
@RajaRajamannar
Periodic reminder: There’s $120T of global B2B spend happening in analogue modes (check, wire, ACH) and governed by a myriad of disparate corporate systems and approval mechanisms. Converting this to modern tech stacks and digital payments rails is a huge opportunity.
1/ I'm very happy to announce that
@AirbaseHQ
has raised $60M in a new Series B round of funding at a $600M valuation. The round was led by
@MenloVentures
with all of our existing investors doubling down.
A quick thread on why we raised now when we didn't really need the money:
A milestone
@visa
today as we announce the first transactions settled w/ USDC.
Visa already moves billions of $$ across 200 markets in 160 currencies; now we can do so in any currency form factor.
Here's a sample settlement file with our digital currency capabilities:
Whether SF is back or not is for the serious thinkbois, but I def picked a wonderful day to meet w/ Fintech peeps in SF. I even found parking!
Thanks
@astrange
&
@illscience
for the fun walk,
@b6nbrown
’s take on fintech consulting and
@rajparekh_
for the crypto update.
We have a long history of supporting our communities and employees - this time is no different. That’s why we are using our supply and logistics network to begin producing and distributing bottles of hand sanitizer to accommodate the growing needs across the United States.
"Bitcoin Rewards" coming to cards: Clubhouse Wed 24th at 6pm PT
This is a fascinating blend of fiat payments & bitcoin.
@Visa
powers 35+ digital currency wallets, many of which have BTC reward cards, including guests
@Blockfi
&
@fold_app
The sheer size of Sao Paulo, Brazil is impressive at any scale.
- 12M people
- 50k high-rise buildings (>115 ft)
Now to make way through some rush hour traffic!
“Visa is working on a number of projects to allow card issuing banks to offer installment-style options directly at the point of sale”
Installments are ~$1.2T globally and growing faster than any other lending product (auto loans, mortgages etc)
1/ We’ve launched a Fastrack program for US Fintechs.
If you are looking to launch a card program this is the fastest way to onboard with
@visa
A dozen partners who are ready to offer
- Payment expertise
- Concierge service
- Office hours
This is where the world is heading:
Virtual cards are simply a tokenized pointer to a funding source.
Today, this token has ubiquitous acceptance & known rules around certainty of payment.
Competing payment rails will emerge but simultaneously ride on this token.
One day someone needs to build a core processor that puts debt rails, credit, closed-loop gift card, check/saving, purchase financing (BNPL), Bitcoin, etc etc all behind one single virtual card number. Transactions will be routed intelligently based on merchant code or rules.
How do I select a bank sponsor?
Join me,
@pitdesi
&
@illscience
Wed 6pm PT when we ask the experts who live this everyday
*
@phazlehurst
- CEO Synctera
* Eric Sprink - CEO Costal Community
* Amanda Swoverland - CCO
@unit_co_
* Brittany Decker - Visa
Excited to partner with
@mahmoudimus
,
@peter
and the team at VGS. They are also a terrific partner in our Fintech Fastrack program which helps issuing clients get to market faster.
We’re delighted to announce that
@Visa
has made a strategic investment in
@getVGS
!
We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Visa as VGS advances its mission to help companies securely use sensitive data!
Read more here:
From our earliest days, we've wanted to make all of financial services truly programmable. We're now working with top banks to make that happen.
Stripe Treasury:
US army corp of engineers creating a standard way to convert hotels into additional hospital capacity.
There is no simple solution but the most encouraging part of this plan is the urgency to get started now and figure out the problems along the way.
Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, Chief of the
@USACEHQ
, provides a 'simple' solution to the complicated problem of building temporary medical facilities to assist states with responding to
#COVID19
. This clip is from a press conference by Army senior leader on March 20, 2020.
In addition to paying himself the legal minimum salary, I believe Max held on to his shares through IPO and into the current cycle.
We need a cycling reference for this level of conviction!
Came home to see our kids stocking this cooler with drinks and the basket with snacks!
With 6 fewer days between Thanksgiving and Xmas, delivery folks are going to need all the help they can get!
#santahelpers
Excited to share some news! Astra has joined
@VisaNews
' Fintech Fast Track Program.
Working with Visa is going to open up a whole new suite of capabilities for automating your finances! Can't wait to share more about what we have in the works!!
BNPL label often confuses two separate concepts:
- a flexible payment on a purchase decision I’ve already made, or
- a promotional enticement that helps create the sale.
One is a financing innovation. The other is a ad-tech innovation (with a financing lever).
Insight 1. "Pay Later" and BNPL are different things.
Pay Later is about consumer convenience, and happens after clicking "Pay" - The customer is the consumer.
BNPL is about merchants increasing sales and order value. The merchant is the customer, consumer is product.
Good write-up from
@JohnStCapital
.
As CBDCs & stablecoins are created on diff blockchains and representing diff currencies, there's a need for these balkanized networks to interoperate.
Universal Payment Channels from
@visa
Research is a framework for that interoperability.
6/ This is a continuation of $V's network of network strategy & emphasis on embracing the role blockchains can have in global payments
If successful the network effects here would be powerful w/ stablecoins / CBDCs needing to come up with an opt-out reason rather than opt-in
Scoop: is in talks to acquire Utah-based startup Divvy, sources tell
@ElizaHaverstock
and me at
@forbes
.
Divvy raised funding at a $1.6B valuation in January, and had previously received a sale offer at more than $2B.
The world’s first Central Bank Digital Currency was issued on a smart card by the Central Bank of Finland in 1991.
The Avant Card functioned as a bearer instrument: it stored a balance on the card, worked offline and enabled anonymous payments. 1/6
It's especially rewarding to work on this pilot with
@Bankblvd
who is focused on building generational wealth for the black community and
@Anchorage
the leading digital asset custodian. Great work by our crypto team
@cuysheffield
and
@rajparekh_
Quietly building the future:
@davidmarcus
edition.
There have been many failed attempts to move "money like email" but UMA has the potential to create verified end-points that could finally make this happen.
Using crypto infrastructure to move fiat across borders 24/7 is a
Super rough edges still, BUT this morning, we had the very first end-to-end Universal Money Address (UMA) transactions between different countries, wallets, and currencies powered by
#Bitcoin
Lightning Network under the hood :
1) In terminal mode from the US with
@Bakkt
in US
I'm thankful for the incredible journey
@Visa
and will be forever inspired by the ingenuity of Dee Hock.
I remain an active conduit to Visa (DM if you need to reach folks there) and excited for the crypto team led by
@cuysheffield
.
Also - I'm hiring
@DriveWealth
.
@auren
Trilogy (90's) = Y Combinator of its day.
Joe Liemondt bet on young talent and gave folks enormous responsibility and a path to start your own company ... which many did.
Plus Austin was a cool place to experiment :)
One of the reasons SV works well (despite all the negative issues we hear about) is that repeat entrepreneurs have soooo much wisdom they bring to new companies. I love how
@WilliamsonMark
(amazing repeat founder) is impacting the trajectory at
@masterclass
Myth
#3
: "If it fails, you set your career back years." Counterfactual: every acquihire.
@WilliamsonMark
taught me about job vs career risk. At a startup, you have job risk, but little career risk. If the startup fails, you'll have learned a ton you can bring to a next job
3/ This amounts to the US government placing its thumb on the scale to choose winners and losers very early in the development of a nascent technology movement and would undoubtedly open the infra bill up to future legal challenges. This is policymaking at its absolute worst.
Trying to buy tiny amounts of Eth directly through the Metamask UI just now—
Wyre doesn't work (didn't buy any, error says "hit daily limit")
Transak doesn't work (didn't buy any, but "hit daily limit")
It's so early in crypto, it's still full of P0 first time experience bugs
Meet Visa. A new, iconic brand symbol is just the beginning. Visa is more than a credit card company; we’re a trusted network that drives commerce forward. Learn more:
LATAM continues to be one of the biggest opportunities in Fintech.
As an example, one of the best performing ads for neobanks in this market is “apply for a card to pay for Spotify!”
That’s a lot of people who have yet to use online payment products!
Now it's time to find an amazing leader to define and execute on the product vision for
@stripe
in LATAM going forward. Who's the best product leader you've worked with who knows LATAM?
Leadership can sometimes fall into the “know it when you see it” definition.
@acce
is doing something special and worthwhile by responding to individual complaints on X.
The goal isn’t to answer every issue nor is it even for an external audience.
But if you work
@paypal
,
This is smart. By experimenting with early payments, companies can help speed up relief efforts.
@chime
using their "Spot Me" feature to pay customers early and then collect stimulus payments as those funds are delivered by govt. We need similar efforts on B2B. Fintech can help.
Proud of this effort by our team. We hope to do even more to help. cc
@mcuban
@chime
"Chime pilots way to get $1,200 stimulus checks to users instantly after talks with Mark Cuban"
VGS is building critical infrastructure to securely operate on sensitive data. Great to see so many
@Visa
clients and partners using the Zero Data platform. Congrats
@mahmoudimus
and team!
Today
@Coupang
becomes $CPNG. 11 years after being invited by Bom Kim to participate in Coupang's seed round, its astounding trajectory reminds me of three key facts:
🤝 Founders > Markets
🏁 Velocity = Victory
☎️ Always take
@billackman
’s call
/🧵