The Future of Digital Payments

Visa processes more than 500 million transactions every day. How is the world’s largest digital payment platform adapting to new technologies and fresh competition? Charlotte Hogg, executive vice president and CEO of its European operations, joins Azeem Azhar to explore the evolving ecosystem of digital payments.

They also discuss:

• Why Visa should be seen as a platform-based technology company like Google, despite being an established financial institution.
• Why the Visa’s “open network” model demands a level playing field for all participants.
• Why an increasingly cashless world is pushing central banks towards digital currencies.
• How the payment platform is now enabling settlement in the USDC stablecoin – a cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar.

@azeem
@exponentialview

Further resources:

• “Visa launches suite of AI tools to enable smarter payments” (TechRadar, 2021)
• “Central banks get serious on digital currencies” (Financial Times, 2021)
• “Bitcoin and the Future of Decentralized Finance” (Exponential View podcast, 2021)

HBR Presents is a network of podcasts curated by HBR editors, bringing you the best business ideas from the leading minds in management. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Harvard Business Review or its affiliates.