Visa, a global leader in digital payments, is helping to bridge existing fiat currencies with blockchains through the Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP), a new product designed to help financial institutions issue and manage fiat-backed tokens on blockchain networks. The VTAP solution is available on the Visa Developer Platform for participating financial institution partners, to create and experiment with their own fiat-backed tokens in a VTAP sandbox.

Visa has a global network of more than 15,000 financial institutions and helps facilitate seamless transactions of fiat currencies across more than 200 countries and territories. Now, Visa is applying its expertise in new technologies, such as smart contracts, to enable banks to issue and transfer fiat-backed tokens over blockchain networks.

“Visa has been at the forefront of digital payments for nearly sixty years, and with the introduction of VTAP, we are once again setting the pace for the industry,” said Vanessa Colella, Global Head of Innovation and Digital Partnerships, Visa. “We're excited to leverage our experience with tokenization to help banks integrate blockchain technologies into their operations.”