In its run towards becoming direct competition towards Bitcoin, financial services firm known by the name of Fidelity Investments has decided to drop two of its long-time partners.

Based on this, according to recent reports, it seems like the company is in the process of ending its partnership with the well-known credit and debit card company, American Express, but also with the Bank of America. The partnerships which have lasted over 12 years have managed to provide billions of dollars in fees.

Instead of the two firms, Fidelity has decided to team up with the US Bancorp and Visa Inc. The idea behind the partnerships is to allow the company to launch the Rewards Visa Signature Card and their Fidelity Card. By using these programs, users will be reportedly able to earn a 2% cashback on all of their purchases, and get rewards directly into their Fidelity accounts. Together with this, there are also plans to produce credit cards with the long-awaited chip security technology, thus providing users with access to a couple of more digital payment methods based on credit cards, such as Samsung Pay, Apple Pay and Android Pay.

Bitcoin is obviously excluded, as the digital currency is not credit-card based. With this in mind, people have asked themselves whether traditional finance operators are trying to push bitcoin out of the industry. As there have been numerous developments meant to make bitcoin more secure and efficient, it’s unlikely that this will happen anytime in the near future.

The end of this partnership will clearly affect American Express, considering the fact that they recently lost their partnership with the Costco Wholesale Corporation, so with Fidelity Investments gone as well, the company’s future looks quite bleak.

Based on everything that has been outlined so far, do you think that Fidelity Investments has chosen the right side? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

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