Wirex has become a principal member of Visa in Europe, a highly respected achievement for our company that has ambitious plans for 2021.
Having successfully completed Visa’s FinTech Fast Track Programme, we’ve managed to secure the sought after principal membership from the global payments company. The membership will allow us to issue Visa cards ourselves, offer new innovative products, and apply for additional licences.
The announcement comes at a pivotal time for the digital economy. With Bitcoin having just reached it's all time high and a series of industry players such as Paypal and Facebook showing support.
We currently offer our services to over 3 million people across the EEA and APAC regions, and research shows the use of crypto continues to grow. In fact, there's been a 271% increase in the number of crypto exchanges on our platform compared to this time last year.
“Digital currencies have the potential to extend the value of digital payments to a greater number of people and places,” said Cuy Sheffield, Senior Director and Head of Cryptocurrency, Visa. “We’re excited to work with innovative fintech’s like Wirex, and enable their customers to use digital currencies at more than 61 million merchants on the Visa network.”
Pavel Matveev, our CEO and Co-Founder, said that “It’s been our core goal to unite the traditional and digital economies, and collaborations with trusted global payments companies such as Visa are making this possible by providing straight and cost-effective solutions for utilising crypto in the everyday. It’s no easy feat to achieve principal membership, and will present numerous opportunities to continue developing a revolutionary product.”
Wirex have had a long-standing partnership with Visa, having worked together to become the first company in the world to issue a contactless crypto-enabled debit card in 2014, enabling our customers to seamlessly spend up to 20 traditional and cryptocurrencies at over 61 million locations globally. Linked up to a next-generation app where they can be bought, held, exchanged or sold, we were also the first to develop a cryptocurrency rewards scheme, Cryptoback™, that rewards users up to 1.5% in Bitcoin for any purchases made with their debit card.
After a record-breaking crowdfunding campaign in October that raised nearly $5 million (US), the announcement rounds off a hugely successful year for us. With an overhaul of our rewards programme and launch in the US imminent, we think that 2021 will be an even more extraordinary year for us!