what happen?
Visa announced the launch of a new platform, Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP), to help financial institutions mint, destroy, transfer and settle stablecoins and central bank digital currencies on the blockchain.
According to a Visa statement, VTAP is currently in the testing phase and is expected to be officially launched in 2025, and is expected to become an important tool for financial institutions to apply blockchain technology.
The Bank of Spain (BBVA) has tested the core functionality of VTAP this year and plans to conduct a test run of assets on Ethereum for some clients next year.
What can the VTAP platform do?
According to foreign media (Cointelegraph), VTAP will provide a complete set of infrastructure for institutional investors and central banks. Visa hopes to use this platform to digitize bank workflows, automate financial operations, and improve efficiency.
The platform has a wide range of applications. For example, banks can automatically manage through smart contracts. When the payment conditions of a transaction are met, the smart contract will automatically trigger and the central bank's digital currency will be used for payment. In addition, banks can also allow customers to use these tokens to purchase tokenized commodities or treasury bills and experience instant settlement on the blockchain, shortening traditional financial transaction times.
Visa also hopes to achieve "cross-chain interoperability" through the VTAP platform, so that different blockchain systems can be compatible. Banks only need to connect to VTAP through a single API interface. In the future, they can operate on public and private chains. . Visa hopes to allow banks to use different blockchains on the platform to meet application scenarios such as token payments and cross-border transactions, and to interact with different partners and customers.
Visa is facing regulatory pressure
In fact, Visa was facing scrutiny from US regulators when it announced the launch of this innovative financial platform.
On September 24, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, accusing the company of allegedly monopolizing the charge card market. The Justice Department alleges that Visa entered into exclusivity agreements and threatened suppliers to ensure that competitors could not divide its market share.
Two days later, a consumer watchdog called "Accountable.US" released a report accusing Visa and Mastercard of forming a duopoly that squeezes out competitors in the charge card and credit card payment markets and prevents other companies from entering. and fair competition.
According to (Cointelegraph) reports in May, analysts have warned that Visa may lose its market position as the leader in payment services because they predict that competition from the stablecoin market is rising.
Jan-Erik Asplund, co-founder of crypto research institution Sacra, said that stablecoins have strong advantages in convenience, and that this type of cryptocurrency backed by legal tender will eventually surpass Visa and become the preferred method of international payments.
Now that Visa has launched the VTAP platform, it can be seen that the company is responding to competitive pressure from the stable currency market and is committed to maintaining its leadership position in the payment market. After VTAP goes online, how Visa will lead the future payment ecosystem will surely become the focus of attention.
Source: Bloomberg, Cointelegraph, PYMNTS
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