- Visa has announced a Universal Payment Channel incorporating multiple forms of digital currencies
- Visa says that the new channel will allow multiple blockchains to interoperate with CBDCs
- The company began working on a digital solution in 2018
Payment processing giant Visa has developed what it is calling a Universal Payment Channel (UPC), a way of transacting using a variety of different forms of digital money, from cryptocurrencies like USDC to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). In a blog post published yesterday, Global CBDC Product Lead Catherine Gu announced that Visa is on track to create a cross-blockchain system that allows for “secure transfer of digital currencies” with an obvious eye on the imminent arrival of CBDCs into everyday life.
Visa Eyes a Future of Fragmented Payment Options
Visa says that UPC “acts like a hub, interconnecting multiple blockchain networks and allowing for secure transfer of digital currencies” allowing “central banks, businesses, and consumers to seamlessly exchange value, no matter the form factor of the currency.” This is clearly a vision for the future rather than something that will be utilized today, which Visa acknowledges:
The platform itself digital currencies may not be a part of your daily financial life today, it’s likely that they will play an important role in the future. As the number of digital currency networks increases — each with unique design characteristics — the likelihood that consumers, businesses, and merchants are transacting on the same network and utilizing the same type of money decreases.
Development Began in 2018
It is this view of a multi-faceted financial world that has pushed Visa to create UPC, which they state dates back to 2018 when their researchers began looking into the interoperability of various emerging technologies.
CBDCs were added to the mix shortly afterwards, with Visa’s head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield, claiming in July last year that CBDCs would be “one of the most important trends for the future of money and payments over the next decade”. This is clearly something that Visa’s research division has taken on board, with its USDC payment trial, announced earlier this year, also playing into their research.
UPC is currently at the concept stage, and with only China in any real position to roll out a CBDC there is no need to rush to a working product yet.
