Payment service giant Visa is planning to allow customers to make auto payments from Ethereum’s custodial crypto wallets. In their view, users would eventually be able to automatically pay for their subscriptions via their self-custodial wallets. In fact, Visa believes that this could be achieved through so-called “delegable accounts”, a new type of self-custodial wallet. According to a spokesperson, “This application could allow a user to set up a programmable payment instruction that can push funds automatically from one self-custodial wallet to another at recurring intervals.” The real innovation in this case is that the transfer of funds would not require human intervention to start the process.
Essentially, a delegable account would combine the traits of a user account and a smart contract into a single type of Ethereum account, completely eliminating the need for a person’s signature in order for every transaction to be initiated. This innovation is in line with Visa’s future plans in the blockchain ecosphere, as the author of the aforementioned proposal, Catherine Gu, stated that if one of the blockchain’s primary functions is payment facilitation, then the “basic requirement is that the technology has to function just as good as today, if not better.”
