Leading payments platform, Wirex, has become a principal member of Visa in Europe, a highly respected achievement for the London-based business with ambitious plans for 2021.

Having successfully completed Visa’s FinTech Fast Track Programme, Wirex have secured the sought after principal membership from the global payments company. Principal membership will allow Wirex to issue Visa cards themselves, offer new innovative products, and apply for additional licences.

The announcement comes at a pivotal time for the digital economy, with Bitcoin recently hitting its all time high¹ and a series of large industry players recently showing support for cryptocurrency.

Wirex already offers their services to over 3 million people across the EEA and APAC regions, and research shows the use of crypto is continuing to grow². Wirex themselves have experienced a 271% increase in the number of crypto exchanges on their platform compared to this time last year.³

“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 Fintechs like Wirex and enable their customers to use digital currencies at more than 61 million merchants on the Visa network.”

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Pavel Matveev, CEO and Co-Founder of Wirex, 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 ensure Wirex was the first company in the world to issue a contactless crypto-enabled debit card in 2014⁴. The card enables 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, the company was 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 the SBI group-backed company. With an overhaul of their rewards programme and launch in the US imminent, it’s thought that 2021 will be an even more extraordinary year for Wirex.