Just-In: Visa completes £700 million acquisition of Ripplenet partner Currencycloud

The payment processing giant, Visa confirmed that it has completed the acquisition of Currencycloud for £700 million, i.e., $950 million. Visa’s acquisition of Currencycloud is aimed at providing transparency, flexibility and control when making international payments or doing business in multiple currencies, to both companies’ clients combined. Visa and Currencycloud had signed a definitive agreement earlier in July, and have finally come through with the completion of the acquisition.

Currencycloud, which is a globally leading provider for B2B cross-border payments had also partnered with RippleNet, Ripple’s financial payments network. The partnership which was agreed upon earlier this year was aimed at facilitating a technologically affluent cross-border payment mechanism.

Mike Laven, CEO at Currencycloud noted this July that, “Currencycloud is all about bringing clarity, speed and value to the traditionally opaque, costly and time-consuming issues associated with cross-border payments, particularly for SMEs that have historically been under-served by traditional banking. Ripple’s solution will help us to extend our network to new parts of the world, removing more barriers to payments for our clients.”

Visa exclusive partnership may expand scope of crypto payments

Prior to Visa’s acquisition, Currencycloud already supported more than 500 banking and technology clients with reach in over 180 countries. Visa, that had recently launched its cryptocurrency financial advisory arm for institutions, with the aim to expand its crypto-focused services, now has extended even farther with Currencycloud’s extensively global client base. Visa is an openly pro-crypto payment processor, and with its exclusive Currencycloud venture, it appears that there may be several upcoming crypto-positives launches.

“Crypto for us is a huge new vertical and growth opportunity. And we will be continuing to focus on growing this business moving forward”, said Nikola Plecas, Visa’s European crypto lead earlier this month.

Visa is determined to dominate the crypto payment gateway sphere with $3.5 billion crypto-linked transactions on its network from Oct. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021. During the first quarter of 2021, Visa had announced its intentions to become the largest gateway for crypto in the coming future. Following up on its pro-crypto declaration, Visa has also entered into the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) industry with its $150,000 purchase of crypto punks earlier this August.