Visa and FTX have expanded their partnership to bring a unique debit card service to at least 40 countries around the world. The cryptocurrency exchange firm will be introducing its Visa-linked debit cards across Latin America and later to Asia and Europe.
Bitcoin.com reported that Visa and FTX’s new collaboration would make crypto debit cards easily available to users in many parts of the world. The financial services firm said on Friday, Oct. 7, that this is a long-term global partnership with FTX Trading Ltd and West Realm Shires Services with the goal of rolling out the crypto debit cards in various nations.
Visa debit cards are directly linked to FTX users’ accounts, and it is already available in the United States. The companies expanded their deal so the cards could also be made available outside of the U.S.
Once the release of the crypto debit cards in Latin America is completed, FTX and Visa will work next on bringing the cards to Europe, and they expect this to happen before the end of the year. Later, the plan is to add more regional areas in 2023, and the debit cards may also be launched in Asian regions.
The FTX Visa debit cards allow users to pay for their purchases and services using their cryptocurrency deposits in their FTX wallets. Cardholders can pay about 80 million merchants that honor Visa worldwide. One of the best things about this is that cardholders are not subject to any processing fees for using the card.
"We are excited to partner with one of the world's largest payment networks to give our users the ability to use their crypto to fund purchases at millions of merchants around the globe,” FTX chief executive officer, Sam Bankman-Fried, said in a press release. “This card allows users to make use of their FTX crypto balances 24 hours a day, 365 days a year securely and with no administrative or processing fees."
FTX’s head of global payments, Adam Jacobs, added, "Through our partnership with Visa, we are continuing to see further expansion of the connection between digital assets and the global financial ecosystem. With the FTX-linked Visa debit cards, individuals can now tap into their cryptocurrency holdings for everyday spending opportunities."