01. April 2021 | 09:36 CET
Visa, Upco International, PayPal - A Milestone!
For a long time, cryptocurrencies could only be thought of as objects of speculation. As a store of value or even a means of payment, Bitcoin, Etherum and Co. were rejected. A currency should be as stable as possible. But now, the very big payment providers are daring to take the step of offering the largest cryptos as a means of payment. The question is whether this is not a clever marketing move. Soon, we will be interested to see whether payment by virtual currencies will become established in society. It would be another breakthrough in the young history of cryptocurrencies.
time to read: 3 minutes by Stefan Feulner
Author
Stefan Feulner
The native Franconian has more than 20 years of stock exchange experience and a broadly diversified network.
He is passionate about analyzing a wide variety of business models and investigating new trends.
Visa - Elon puts on the pressure
The beginning of making Bitcoin & Co. socially acceptable as a means of payment was, of course, driven by innovation leader and Tesla boss Elon Musk. Not only that, Tesla, with its Company assets of USD 1.5 billion, made the community sit up and take notice. Much more interesting is that buyers from the United States will pay with Bitcoins in the future. With this move, Musk seems to have managed to get cryptocurrencies recognized as a means of payment and thus indirectly put pressure on the major payment providers to follow suit.
Earlier this week, one of the largest payment providers, Visa, announced that it would accept the cyber currency USD Coin for payments due to the increased demand for new payment options. The stablecoin, which is based on the Etherum blockchain, is directly pegged to the US dollar. Competitor MasterCard also plans to rely on cryptocurrencies for investment and payment purposes in the future.
PayPal - Checkout with Crypto
Last but not least, in this eventful crypto week in which Bitcoin is once again trading near its high of USD 60,000, PayPal has also followed suit. In the future, it will be possible to use cryptocurrencies as a standard means of payment via PayPal. According to a statement, the offer called "Checkout with Crypto" should work similarly to classic money payment. According to the Company, the prerequisite is an account in one of the four best-known cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum or Bitcoin Cash. Thus, after checking about sufficient account balance to carry out a transaction, the cryptocurrency should automatically be offered as a payment option. If the user confirms the transaction, PayPal automatically converts the cryptocurrency amount to the equivalent of a traditional currency.
Upco International - Innovation from Canada
If paying with virtual currencies proves to be a success, it should not be long before the feature is implemented at the UpcoPay payment service. Upco International's management is always open to innovation. After the Company's successful turnaround and restructuring into two segments, the Canadians expect strong organic growth in 2021, especially in the wholesale telecommunications segment, which will operate under the name Oktacom Inc. in the future. The segment can be equated with traditional wholesale telecommunications. By pooling smaller customers, better contract terms can be achieved with international telecommunications providers for cross-border telephone traffic.
Upco International coordinates the Wholesale Telecom segment but is operationally managed by dedicated companies that will be integrated into the Group over time. Currently, the Company is eyeing more than two acquisition targets in the telecom sector, which are at an early stage of due diligence. In each case, the targets are expected to be the leading wholesale telecommunications companies in a desirable niche market. They have a multi-year track record of revenue growth and profitability.
The Digital Services unit will focus on voice and data services and digital payments, and, above all, money transfers. Voice and data services such as voice over IP and chats will be handled via UpcoNet, while digital payments are to run via UpcoPay. With the UpcoPay payment service, which is based on a blockchain, it will be possible to load money, process payments, or even transfer foreign currency without setting up an account or entering sensitive banking data.
Later this year, Upco users in Europe will then be able to use UpcoPay to send and receive money quickly, securely and without using a credit or debit card. In doing so, transaction fees are far below those of competitors such as PayPal or Western Union. The payment service is to be launched throughout Europe with Finnish partner Enfuce. The share price reached a high of EUR 0.30 at the beginning of February. Since then, the value has corrected and is currently in a bottoming out phase in the EUR 0.18 area. The launch of the service should give the share a further boost.
