Visa Crypto Head Sheffield Touts NFTs to Speed Commerce

Bitcoin Visa Card

NFT technology is developing into a key tool for commerce, as Visa’s vice president and head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield, noted Tuesday (June 14) at the 2022 Financial Technology Conference.

Sheffield believes that NFTs could be set to strengthen the speed of commerce going forward, and impact the digital payments industry as we know it.

“If NFTs as a technology can really start to increase the velocity of commerce and bring more people across the world … we think that is a big opportunity for the entire payments ecosystem, and we think a lot of this is going to be driven and built by individual creators, which we kind of see as the next generation of small businesses,” said Sheffield.

In a recent PYMNTS report, as of October 2021, there are on average 6.8 payment methods supported by eCommerce merchants for cross-border transactions — and that number will only increase if NFT popularity continues to trend upward, as Sheffield predicts.

Read more: Cross-Border Merchant Optimization Index

Sheffield also stated that Visa cardholders in particular are likely to purchase “digital goods that they truly own and they take possession in, that give them utility that they can resell at some point in the future.”

Related: Grubhub Offers Drivers Instant Wages After Partnering With PayPal, Visa

In related Visa news, the company has partnered with PayPal and Grubhub to bring Grubhub drivers a new, innovative way to receive their wages.

The new product, Instant Cashout via Direct to Debit, is enabled by Hyperwallet from Paypal and Visa Direct, Visa’s real-time money movement network. This new payout management platform is managed by PayPal, which uses Visa Direct to deposit those payments to bank debit cards.

Through this three-company partnership, Grubhub’s workers have more flexible access to their earnings by allowing any driver to deposit earnings to an eligible bank debit card or prepaid card instantly.