Transak – a leading infrastructure provider for crypto-to-fiat conversions – has partnered with global payments giant Visa to make moving between both fields of currency as efficient as possible.
The collaboration will allow crypto holders in 145 countries to seamlessly sell their crypto for fiat, with direct access to the capabilities of Visa Direct.
Visa Direct lets members send real-time push payments to over one billion Visa card accounts within 30 minutes or less. That’s a step up from traditional banking rails, where transferring and converting funds can take days – especially when done across borders.
That network is now accessible to any digital wallets that already use Transak’s infrastructure for buying and selling crypto, which includes over 350 wallets such as MetaMask, TrustWallet, and Ledger.
“Now, millions across the globe have a straightforward way to cash out their digital asset holdings to their local currency in real-time and intuitively,” said Sami Start, Co-founder & CEO of Transak, regarding the partnership.
“They no longer have to walk the treacherous path of compliance uncertainty or face risks of fraud — Transak and Visa have them covered for over 40 cryptocurrencies,” he added.
After conversion, users can spend their fiat at over 130 million merchants globally that accept Visa.
The partnership further remedies a long-standing issue plaguing mainstream adoption of crypto: quickly converting one’s crypto holdings back into local fiat currency.
Though easy swaps into stablecoins – cryptocurrencies backed by fiat currencies – provide a remedy for some, such assets exist in a legal gray zone within many jurisdictions. Canada, for example, has forced its major crypto exchanges to delist Tether (USDT), the world’s largest stablecoin by market cap.
Both Visa and its rival card network, Mastercard, have spent years supporting the crypto ecosystem through new services bridging the gap between fiat and digital assets.
For example, Visa has leveraged USDC on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains to settle millions of dollars worth of fiat currency payments authorized over VisaNet.
Early last year, the CEO of Visa argued that there’s a “meaningful” future for both stablecoins and central bank digital currencies.
At the time, the company also published an annual report naming “Digital Wallet Providers” and “Alternative Payments Providers” as competitors to its business.