Visa Europe is the latest financial institution to announce a proof of concept project to explore how the blockchain can be useful for international remittances. However, while most institutions are looking at creating their own private distributed ledgers, Visa Europe is teaming up with distributed ledger specialist Epiphyte to test its product by running it on the live public blockchain: "The big change that really sets the [Bitcoin] opportunity apart here, is that by using an open non-proprietary standard, you can have local players integrating with it and providing you with a wide range of network effects", says Jim McCarthy, CEO of Epiphyte.
Visa Europe is the latest financial institution to announce a proof of concept project to explore how the blockchain can be useful for international remittances. However, while most institutions are looking at creating their own private distributed ledgers, Visa Europe is teaming up with distributed ledger specialist Epiphyte to test its product by running it on the live public blockchain: "The big change that really sets the [Bitcoin] opportunity apart here, is that by using an open non-proprietary standard, you can have local players integrating with it and providing you with a wide range of network effects", says Edan Yago, CEO of Epiphyte.