Bitcoin Forum

Visa executive joins BitPay

A former Visa executive has joined the bitcoin merchant processor BitPay as its chief compliance officer.

Tim Byun, formerly the anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing officer of Visa, took up his new role at BitPay at the Digital Banking Summit conference last week.

"As the bitcoin industry continues to grow, BitPay wants to ensure that our policies and procedures fall inline with various state, federal and international regulations," said BitPay executive chairman Tony Gallippi. "For this reason, we hired Tim to set up and maintain our compliance structure."

Source:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/cryptocurrency-news-round-darkcoin-rises-visa-exec-joins-bitpay-notchs-dogecoin-donations-1451982


Opinion:
Do you think Visa executive joining BitPay a good or bad idea for Bitcoin?

Large companies can afford to hire people to deal with all the Gov't BS. Sadly it's the smaller companies who really suffer from too much red tape. This sounds like a good idea for BitPay.

This is a great success for Bitpay actually. Now they have someone who knows all the dirty tricks and inside jobs of Visa.  ;D Also, it is a very significant PR coup for the Bitcoin-based payment processor.

This is good for bitcoin. People read bitcoin and visa in the same news, this could only improve how people see bitcoin.

This is great! BitPay is really crossing its T's and dotting its I's.

I guess the Visa guys are starting to smell the coffee and see the writing on the wall
Lets hope so anyway ;)

If Bitpay is good for Bitcoin, than Bitpay hireing someone that knows his way around goverment bullshit paperology and rules is as good as it gets. It means Bitpay is prepairing to deal with all crap goverment could throw at it so that cant really be bad thing. If they "turn evil", new ones with less bullshit will come...that's the buty of Bitcoin...it's open to anyone and everyone.

Great news, Visa with its branded credit cards and debit cards is one of the biggest multinational financial services corporations, Bitpay can only receive a huge benefit from this.

They have access to the inside news, and they might have seen the trends. Recently Visa has suffered a series of setbacks, such as the near-banishment from Russian Federation. At the same time, the Bitcoin sector has been seeing a series of high profile funding campaigns (which turned out to be successful) such as those by Bitpay, Xapo and Bitfury.

Bitpay will benefit from the recruitment. Visa executive bring the whole concept of visa network and try to incorporate with bit coin payment process. He knows all the government things. I believe it will improve bit pay a lot.

stop convert in FIAT ... http://cdn2.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1107686/fresh-prince-in-bel-air-fresh-prince-of-belair-funny-Favim.com-231587.gif

Bitpay actually needs someone like this specially considering the difficulty and amount of issue about money laundering regarding BTC, No BTC regulation ideas though.

of course its a good idea and a clever move. with that much funding they will hire some more good people and this gives bitpay alot credibility!

It's just really really sad that Bitpay chose to go through normal VC channels to get it's funding, helping the rich get richer is not the bitcoin way! How many of us would be champing at the bit to invest our bitcoin there? I certainly would have.

This should be their priorities:

1. Upgrade their infrastructure, so that privacy and security of the clients are guaranteed.
2. Get good PR from the major media houses.
3. Hire experienced people (such as Tim Byun)
4. Get themselves publicly listed in any of the major stock exchanges.
5. Ensure transparency in the accounts and finance section.  
6. Get some senators / Rep.s to do the lobbying.

If you want to get rich, buy bitcoins and hodl!!! Bitpay (and others) are working hard to get Bitcoin popular.

So misleading. He is a FORMER executive, not current.

I noticed that:
Why did he leave?
Was he fired/laid-off or did he quit for some reason?

Sorry for the ignorence, but whatIs bitpay?

An appropriate move for Bitpay and positive for the industry.  Attracting a Visa exec gives some attractiveness to bitcoin overall.

I would have issues with trusting (former) executives from another company.
What if he is 'on a secret mission' to destroy/damage BitPay?
Sorry to be so negative, but stranger things have happened many times in the business world.

This economy can use some bright minds from traditional finance that understands how to navigate complex regulations and has experience in the payment processing field. I hope bit coin companies continue to poach talent from the traditional sector.