Visa and Tribal Partner To Expand Financing Options

Tribal Credit, a cryptocurrency-focused enterprise payment platform, has partnered with Visa to expand credit and financing options for small and medium-sized businesses across Latin America, highlighting the growing synergies between traditional payment providers and the blockchain industry.

Tribal’s collaboration with Visa enables it to issue business credit cards in local denominations and currencies throughout Latin America, including Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Panama, Uruguay, and the Dominican Republic. According to a Tribal spokesperson, the company’s initial focus will be on providing this credit facility to the countries of Colombia, Peru, and Chile.

While the Visa partnership focuses on providing traditional financing solutions to small businesses, Tribal’s technology also allows enterprises to accept payments and transfer funds using cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Tribal collaborated with Latin American crypto exchange Bitso and the Stellar Development Foundation in December 2021 to launch a new enterprise cross-border payment service based on Stellar’s USD stablecoin.

Tribal cited El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law and Latin America’s growing acceptance of cryptocurrencies as reasons to continue developing blockchain-based payment solutions.

Visa, too, has broadened its view of cryptocurrencies, even developing a blockchain interoperability project for digital payments. The Universal Payment Channel project is investigating blockchain interoperability with the goal of streamlining digital asset transfers across chains. The credit card company announced a new crypto consulting service in December 2021 to assist merchants and banks in integrating digital assets into their business models.

Visa, surprisingly, has dabbled in the nonfungible token market, purchasing a CryptoPunk for $150,000 in August 2021. In the same month, Visa released a white paper promoting NFTs as a promising medium for fan engagement.

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