Visa is planning to connect its real-time platform to digital wallets, which could provide greater access to the company’s payments network.

Linking the Visa Direct payments platform to digital wallets could provide greater access to digital wallets for the 5 billion bank accounts and cards connected to Visa Direct globally, said Catherine Gu, Visa’s head of global CBDC & Crypto Infrastructure Build. She made her remarks during a panel discussion entitled, “Improving cross-border payments – should central banks leave it to the private sector?” held during the Bank for International Settlement (BIS) Innovation Summit last week. Visa Direct offers real-time P2P, B2B, B2C and GTC (Government to Consumer) payments.

“I think the key initiative, actually, next step is linking Visa Direct to digital wallets, with a specific focus … to enable those without bank account access in the conventional sense to actually get access to the Visa Direct network,” Gu said.

“As we get more familiar with the discussions and so on, we’re trying to move from thought leadership more to experimentation piloting, together with our partners, to leverage different capabilities and to test for various specific use cases when it comes to digital currencies,” she added.

Gu also highlighted the credit card company’s efforts to further B2B cross-border payments through its B2B Connect, which launched in 2019.

“It’s really aimed to deliver high value,” Gu said. B2B cross-border payments for FIs and institutional and corporate customers is available currently in about 104 countries.

The panel also included Jon Cunliffe, the deputy governor of Bank of England; Tony McLaughlin, managing director of emerging payments and business development in treasury and trade solutions at Citi; and Thomas Jordan, chairman of the governing board of the Swiss National Bank. The group tackled issues regarding the role of public and private entities in cross-border payments, as well as payment interoperability and how central bank digital currency (CBDC) might support that.

DLT: One ledger to unite them all?

One topic raised by Citi’s McLaughlin was the distinction between private and public money, an issue that he noted Cunliffe has raised publicly. McLaughlin suggested that distributed ledger technology (DLT) makes it possible to manage both types of money in one system.

“What we may have is a DLT that includes central bank money, but also commercial bank money and also the money of regulated non-banks,” he said. “So, our concept is yes, let’s build a digital euro, let’s build a digital Swiss franc, build a digital dollar — but build that around the concept of the sovereign currency, which is central bank money plus commercial bank money plus e-money.”

McLaughlin said he foresees corporate cash management as the vehicle for driving the biggest improvements in cross-border payments in the coming years.

“Cash management on a cross-border basis payment is relatively complex, and it’s a sphere where we could really use a programmable payment of programmable Swiss franc or programmable digital dollar,” McLaughlin said. However, he noted the payments can’t be CBDC because central banks wouldn’t want those sums on their balance sheets, nor could they be stable coins because they’re pre-funded on an individual bank’s coin.

“Therefore, there’s a great opportunity to build a digital pound for corporate cash management purposes that would be universal,” he said. “That leads to this conclusion of let’s have a broader idea of digital sovereign currency not limited to the central bank balance sheet.”

It’s possible to achieve this if the public and private sector work together, McLaughlin added.

“My plea is, let’s raise our head above the carpet slightly,” he said. “Stop thinking about central bank digital currency, start thinking about a broader concept of sovereign digital currency that will address a range of universal use cases.”

Shares of Visa [NYSE: V] were trading at $228.17 at 2:51 p.m., up 3.35% as of market open.