CIRCLE

What impact might circle make on the Bitcoin scene?

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/12/27/michele-burns-circle/?source=yahoo_quote
http://www.circle.com/about/

From their "about us" page

Circle is about enabling global digital currency and transforming the world economy with secure, simple, and less costly technology for storing and using money.

We’re as excited about Bitcoin and digital currency as we were when we first discovered the Internet in 1990. And we feel that opportunities for transforming payments and finance are as profound today as the opportunities were in 1993 to transform media, communications and commerce with the Web.
We’re entering a more deeply integrated world economy, driven by the Internet, where social identities, media, communications and commerce flow freely across the planet, instantly and with virtually no cost to users. Yet our existing infrastructure for handling money remains decades old, frustrating users and creating an enormous tax on our world economy.

Something big has to change. We want to help.
To do this, Circle is building a suite of online products for end-users, businesses and charities aimed at enabling greater ease-of-use in online and in-person payments, enhanced security and privacy for consumers, and lower costs for businesses in accepting digital payments. We’re very hard at work, and looking forward to having you try our products soon.

Our platform is built on top of open standards and open protocols such as Bitcoin, and Circle is a Gold Member of the Bitcoin Foundation. We deeply believe that open source and open standards are the foundation of this next Internet tsunami, and we hope to collaborate broadly with the developers and companies around the world that are embracing these new technologies and standards.
We come to this project having pioneered and nurtured Internet technologies and services that have transformed software, media and communications, and have built and helped to lead many significant global public companies. We hope to help do the same for Bitcoin and digital currency.