Visa Europe's innovation division cooperates with micro/nanopayment service SatoshiPay to create a pilot software that will combine the two payment systems.

According to the founder of SatoshiPay Meinhard Benn, the startup's micropayment technology will be integrated with Visa card payment system to perform automatic micropayments from a debit/credit card to the SatoshiPay bitcoin wallet. He says that the project aims to “establish a safer method of purchasing small amounts of bitcoin using credit and debit cards.”

According to Benn, Visa intends to find out how the micropayment technology can be applied in the field of machine-to-machine transactions and the Internet of Things. For example, earlier this year the company was exploring the technology to make light bulbs pay for the electricity they use. Visa and SatoshiPay are also planning a joint survey of the audience concerning micropayments for online content.

In February 2016, Visa introduced a software package Microtransactions (MTX) still available in test mode. The key feature of Microtransactions is to “engage customers in virtual currency transactions with reward points and earned points,” according to the company. The APIs are supposed to enable merchants to use app-based virtual coins and tokens and turn microtransactions into an additional source of income by allowing users to pay with virtual currency. In this case, however, the nature of virtual currency is not specified.

Ludmila Brus