visa, euros Visa Europe became the latest enterprise financial institution to announce a blockchain proof-of-concept this month, when it revealed it was working to leverage the emerging technology for remittances. But while many of its peers are seeking to pursue such projects on closed, proprietary ledgers, Visa Europe Collab innovation partner Jon Downing has clarified that the test project is being conducted on the live bitcoin blockchain. In interview, Downing and Edan Yago, CEO of blockchain services firm and project partner Epiphyte , discussed the initiative in new detail. Payments in the proof-of-concept, they explained, originate within a testing environment set up by Epiphyte and that funds are then sent cross-border over the bitcoin blockchain and received on Visa devices. Downing explained: "A payment that would go from fiat currency and be received in [Kenyan mobile money service] M-Pesa, but it would be facilitated through one of the blockchain providers that enables transfers of those funds." Downing said it was the need to identify a "human use case" with potential global value that led the project to focus on the remittance industry. The test is notable as the remittance sector has long been identified as one that could come to be disrupted by use cases for peer-to-peer payments on the blockchain. To date, however, the idea that bitcoin could lower costs in remittances has received significant pushback from incumbents in the industry, such as MoneyGram and Western Union , which have sought to portray cash as a payment method unlikely to be displaced by any digital alternatives. Solving the last mile In remarks, Yago took issue with the idea that the remittances challenges described by MoneyGram and Western Union were accurate, positioning them as the product of a lack of creative thinking by entrenched industry providers. Yago argued that […]
