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Payments Firm Wirex Becomes Visa Principal Member Ahead of Crypto Card Launch

The crypto and fiat payments firm can now issue Visa cards.

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Payments platform Wirex announced Tuesday it has become a principal member of Visa in Europe.

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  • Coming after the U.K.-licensed firm completed the Visa FinTech Fast Track Programme, Wirex now has permission to issue Visa cards, sell related products and apply for additional licenses.
  • "We're excited to work with innovative fintechs like Wirex and enable their customers to use digital currencies at more than 61 million merchants on the Visa network," said Cuy Sheffield, senior director and head of cryptocurrency at Visa.
  • Wirex was granted principal member status of Mastercard back in July.
  • The company said it offers fiat and cryptocurrency payment services to over three million people across the European Economic Area and Asia-Pacific region. It's soon to launch its own debit card allowing payments in both fiat and digital currencies.
  • Wirex has had a crypto partnership with with Japanese financial firm SBI Holdings since 2017. Last year, it also launched 26 stablecoins on the Stellar blockchain network.

See also: Wirex Taps Railsbank to Replace Scandal-Struck Wirecard as Asia-Pacific Card Provider

Tanzeel Akhtar

Tanzeel Akhtar has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Forbes Africa, Financial Times, The Street, Citywire, Investing.com, Euromoney, Yahoo! Finance, Benzinga, Kitco News, African Business Magazine, Hedge Week, Campden Family Office, Modern Investor, Spear's Wealth Management Magazine, Global Investor, ETF.com, ETF Stream, CIO UK, Funds Global Asia, Portfolio Institutional, Interactive Investor, Bitcoin Magazine, CryptoNews.com, Bitcoin.com, The Local, The Next Web, Mining Journal, Money Marketing, Marketing Week and more. Tanzeel trained as a foreign correspondent at the University of Helsinki, Finland and newspaper journalist at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She holds a BA (Honours) in English Literature from the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK and completed a semester abroad as an ERASMUS student at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She is NCTJ Qualified - Media Law, Public Administration and passed the Shorthand 100WPM with distinction. She does not currently hold value in any digital currencies or projects.

Tanzeel Akhtar