BitPay Launches Prepaid Mastercard in the United States

[btc_angela]

BitPay Launches Prepaid Mastercard in the United States

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BitPay, the largest global blockchain payments provider, today introduces the BitPay Card, the first Mastercard® Prepaid card for crypto users in the United States. The BitPay Card enables customers to instantly convert cryptocurrency into fiat currency, which is then loaded onto the card and can be spent anywhere Mastercard debit is accepted around the world. Customers can also use their cards online for purchases and to withdraw cash from ATMs.

“The BitPay Card offers new benefits and features for consumers making it easier to convert Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency into a spendable balance without currency risk,” said Stephen Pair, co-founder and CEO of BitPay. “We are excited to work with Mastercard to expand crypto’s use, while making it easy for businesses to attract new customers who want to spend Bitcoin and offer more places for customers with Bitcoin to shop.”

The BitPay Card offers a safe, smart, and fast way to convert crypto to fiat currency without conversion fees. The card features an EMV chip that provides added security and is contactless-enabled for payments. The BitPay Card requires the BitPay mobile app and can empower cardholders to reload their card, view transaction history and manage card settings on the go. The BitPay Card supports BTC, BCH, ETH, XRP and stable coins USDC, GUSD, PAX and BUSD. Funds are made available to cardholders in minutes, without having to wait on an exchange to transfer funds. The BitPay App not only tracks and manages card spend, but also allows you to purchase crypto and gift cards from popular brands. Applicants for the BitPay Card must be at least 18 years old and successfully complete identity and residency verification. To sign up, visit bitpay.com/card.

“At Mastercard, we’re committed to offering differentiated financial services to consumers on a global scale,” said Sherri Haymond, executive vice president, Digital Partnerships at Mastercard. “We’re excited to be working with BitPay to offer consumers greater choice and flexibility when it comes to managing their finances.”

“We’re honored that BitPay is using Galileo’s flexible APIs to power its BitPay Card, making it easy for customers to pay for purchases with bitcoins wherever Mastercard debit cards are accepted,” added Galileo Financial Technologies CEO Clay Wilkes.

About Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Metropolitan Commercial Bank®, The Entrepreneurial Bank, is headquartered in New York City and operates full-service banking centers in Manhattan; Boro Park, Brooklyn; and Great Neck, Long Island. The parent company, Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp., is a publicly traded company. The common stock of Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp. is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and trades under the ticker symbol “MCB.” Metropolitan Commercial Bank is a New York State chartered commercial bank, an FDIC member and an equal opportunity lender.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200611005269/en/BitPay-Launches-Prepaid-Mastercard-United-States

Not from US, but this seems to be a welcoming news? Not saying that this will make one step closer to adoption, but will certainly a good option for crypto enthusiast in the US, what do you guys think about this news?

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[AB de Royse777]

So they are one step ahead to shill the BCH to US residents. I do not think BitPay doing this and that is going to benefit bitcoin. They will heavily shill BCH to their clients.

[o_e_l_e_o]

BitPay are anti-bitcoin, not to mention being funded by known scammer Roger Ver, and should be avoided at all costs.

Taking a look a small print for this (available here: https://bitpay.com/assets/pdfs/mc-cardholder-agreement.pdf) reveals all the usual suspects. It requires full KYC and copies of all your documents, and they will use that information to spam you with marketing as well as sharing it with other financial companies. They reserve the right to freeze your funds and revoke your card privileges "with or without cause or notice". Given BitPay's history of being anti-privacy and using blockchain analysis on their customers to uncover where coins have come from or where they are going, even something as innocuous as loading it up with bitcoin from a gambling site could result in your coins being seized and your card being cancelled.

[gentlemand]

Taking a look a small print for this (available here: https://bitpay.com/assets/pdfs/mc-cardholder-agreement.pdf) reveals all the usual suspects.

Even if Satoshi himself launched Satoshicard he'd have to do the same. They're no doubt assholes but all this is par for the course.

Does this fully replace their existing card? There seem to have been an increasing number of niggles with the existing card.

[hugeblack]

The BitPay Card enables customers to instantly convert cryptocurrency into fiat currency, which is then loaded onto the card and can be spent anywhere Mastercard debit is accepted around the world.
The BitPay Card offers a safe, smart, and fast way to convert crypto to fiat currency without conversion fees.

In short, the card works like all other prepaid cards with instantly convert cryptocurrency into fiat currency. I was hoping that the balance would be in cryptocurrencies with the possibility of converting it into fiat or continuing to deduct payments from the balance (which could be in cryptocurrencies at the time of payment.)
Since they say that "convert crypto to fiat currency without conversion fees," what are the fees that are deducted when using this card? Would it be cheaper than using services such as LN or Bitpay payment, a payment chain for companies and institutions?

I do not think that such services would be good because they bear the defects of the two systems (transfer fees "Mastercard," and not to avoid fluctuations "bitcoin").

[o_e_l_e_o]

what are the fees that are deducted when using this card?

You can see the fees on the Cardholder Agreement PDF I linked to above (https://bitpay.com/assets/pdfs/mc-cardholder-agreement.pdf) on pages 11 through 13. They actually seem very reasonable, which is surprising for BitPay. In summary, $10 card purchase fee (for a first card or a replacement card), $2.50 ATM withdrawal fee, no activation or registration fee, no fees for loading the card, and no fees for spending from the card, and no recurring weekly or monthly fee provided you are using the card, but there is a recurring "inactivity fee" of $5 monthly after 3 months of the card not being used.

It does not, however, make any mention about exchange rates. There have been plenty of complaints over the years from people using their other cards who have been hit with 5-10% mark ups on deposited bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Given that BitPay aren't exactly a trustworthy company, I would expect the same behavior here - advertise no fee, but use an exchange rate 5% or more away from the current value of bitcoin.

[LTU_btc]

Not surprised much about these news. What I can say, BitPay is worst Bitcoin payment proccessor that I ever used. We discussed many times why they are so bad, so I'm a bit lazy to repeat. So, I'm definitely not going to this card. But I wasn't aware that they are pro-Bitcoin Cash and that they are closely connected with Ver. Well, that makes them even worse.
@o_e_l_e_o, their fees is really reasonable in general, but $2.5 fee for every ATM withdrawal isn't that cheap. Most cards that I used previously were giving at least one free withdrawal per month.

[DaveF]

what are the fees that are deducted when using this card?

You can see the fees on the Cardholder Agreement PDF I linked to above (https://bitpay.com/assets/pdfs/mc-cardholder-agreement.pdf) on pages 11 through 13. They actually seem very reasonable, which is surprising for BitPay. In summary, $10 card purchase fee (for a first card or a replacement card), $2.50 ATM withdrawal fee, no activation or registration fee, no fees for loading the card, and no fees for spending from the card, and no recurring weekly or monthly fee provided you are using the card, but there is a recurring "inactivity fee" of $5 monthly after 3 months of the card not being used.

It does not, however, make any mention about exchange rates. There have been plenty of complaints over the years from people using their other cards who have been hit with 5-10% mark ups on deposited bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Given that BitPay aren't exactly a trustworthy company, I would expect the same behavior here - advertise no fee, but use an exchange rate 5% or more away from the current value of bitcoin.

2 Small point(s), that are not covered in the agreement
1) There is no fee if you had the Visa
2) There is no ATM fee if it follows the old card in that if you go to one of the six (yes only 6) branches that Metropolitan Commercial Bank has.
Yeah not a big deal but if you are near one of the few branches it did save you $2.50

As for the load cost as of now 10:37AM EST June 19th 2020 going to preev.com $100.00 is .01067 to load $100 on the card with the app is showing .01067578 so it's not that bad.

I did order the card so once I get it I give more info.

-Dave

[gentlemand]

Aren't atm fees standard in the US anyway? I'm not sure I ever found a free one in all the time I was there whereas it's the opposite in Europe.

Or is this an extra fee on top of the standard one?

[DaveF]

Aren't atm fees standard in the US anyway? I'm not sure I ever found a free one in all the time I was there whereas it's the opposite in Europe.

Or is this an extra fee on top of the standard one?

There can be 2 ATM fees.
The ATM operator charges a fee.
Your bank charges a fee to use an ATM that is not part of their network.
So you have have no fees, 1 fee or 2 fees. Depending on your bank.
Some networks are huge, and you can always find an ATM that is part of the network so it's no big deal.
Others have 6 branches......

-Dave

[o_e_l_e_o]

2) There is no ATM fee if it follows the old card in that if you go to one of the six (yes only 6) branches that Metropolitan Commercial Bank has.

According to the PDF, the charge is $2.50 for both in network and out of network ATM withdrawals.

Aren't atm fees standard in the US anyway?

As Dave says, there are two different fees. This card charges you $2.50 for withdrawals. There may be an additional fee from the owner of the ATM on top of that.

[DaveF]

2) There is no ATM fee if it follows the old card in that if you go to one of the six (yes only 6) branches that Metropolitan Commercial Bank has.

According to the PDF, the charge is $2.50 for both in network and out of network ATM withdrawals.

The Visa said the same thing but there was no fee at their ATMs.
Probably, since there are so few it's easier just to say $2.50 otherwise people start to complain that they can't find a no fee ATM.

As I said once mine comes in I'll take a drive to the one on LI and see if it has an ATM and if it charges me.

-Dave

[DaveF]

Well the card came:



Unlike the old one you can not fund it from an external wallet, you must have funds in your BitPay wallet to add money to the card.
Just sent some funds to the BitPay wallet with a low fee, will see how it goes once they hit.

Update: I loaded $50 on the card. They added a "transaction" fee and a "miner" fee same as they do with their regular invoices. However, the rate was very low .00546 which at current preev rate is $50.46 (10:37 PM EST 24-June) so not as bad as I thought it would be.

-Dave

[gentlemand]

Update: I loaded $50 on the card. They added a "transaction" fee and a "miner" fee same as they do with their regular invoices. However, the rate was very low .00546 which at current preev rate is $50.46 (10:37 PM EST 24-June) so not as bad as I thought it would be.

Did you double check what exchange rate you got? Some of these cards have hidden spreads. I didn't notice Bitpay doing that with their Wavecrest card that I had but times and policies can change.

[DaveF]

Did you double check what exchange rate you got? Some of these cards have hidden spreads. I didn't notice Bitpay doing that with their Wavecrest card that I had but times and policies can change.

At the time the exchange rate was within pennies of the preev rate. Without the fees the $50 on BitPay was about $50.05 on preev. But since BTC was slowly falling last night it might have been a bit worse but not that much.

Card worked for me the AM to get breakfast with no issues.

-Dave

[DaveF]

More info:
When going to a Metropolitan Commercial Bank ATM (Great Neck, NY) they charged $2.50 AND the ATM had a$2.75 fee
The old Visa had *neither* fee. So, it might be that they charge now OR it saw it as not one of their cards.

BUT, when using it as a regular debit card at a local Stop & Shop I bought some stuff and took out $20.00 with no fee.
When BTC goes up a bit I'll add more to the card and see if I can take out more then $20 with no fee.

When looking at load prices they are paying about 1% above CMC prices for BCH and ETH for loads at the moment. Just a singular data point at the moment.


-Dave

[JollyGood]

Thank you for mentioning Ver is connected to Bitpay. Anything related to Ver has to be looked at carefully before signing up to it, preferably avoiding it completely.

BitPay are anti-bitcoin, not to mention being funded by known scammer Roger Ver, and should be avoided at all costs.

Taking a look a small print for this (available here: https://bitpay.com/assets/pdfs/mc-cardholder-agreement.pdf) reveals all the usual suspects. It requires full KYC and copies of all your documents, and they will use that information to spam you with marketing as well as sharing it with other financial companies. They reserve the right to freeze your funds and revoke your card privileges "with or without cause or notice". Given BitPay's history of being anti-privacy and using blockchain analysis on their customers to uncover where coins have come from or where they are going, even something as innocuous as loading it up with bitcoin from a gambling site could result in your coins being seized and your card being cancelled.

[alani123]

BitPay used to have a visa card. Not sure if it stopped running at some point but it used to be considered one of the reliable services for US. Now loading up their page from my country tells me to sign up for their mailing list as their new card might be coming soon to my country. That's interesting to hear, some competition is always good. But it's rather sad the route BitPay took for their retail payment business. They adopted a controversial protocol for bitcoin payments and no longer support depositing to a plain address. Ironically Roger Ver's proprietary wallet is one of the few ones that supports BitPay's obsolete BIP.

But if their card has good rates it should be judget on its own merits. If they can offer a good product for conventional payments, hopefully they'll change their retail payment strategy for bitcoin too.


I had a thread monitoring bitcoin debit cards. Now with more cards coming in perhaps I should start updating it again maybe.

[DaveF]

I had a thread monitoring bitcoin debit cards. Now with more cards coming in perhaps I should start updating it again maybe.

Keep in mind that a lot of them were using Wirecard for the back end so who knows which ones still work. There are going to be issues for a while with that.

Back to the BitPay MC.
I added some funds (BCH / ETH) both were within a few pennies of CMC. None of the BS miner fees that they charge for BTC.
Went to the food store and bought some things and got $100 cash back with no fee.

So, it's not horrible. You can get cash and the rates are not that bad.

YMMV on if it works for you or not.

-Dave

[gentlemand]

Keep in mind that a lot of them were using Wirecard for the back end so who knows which ones still work. There are going to be issues for a while with that.

After that kicked off I turned out to have three Wirecard-issued cards, two of which I couldn't remember having but they all emailed updates regarding it. They're all back in operation now but who knows for how long.

It was the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK who shut them down which I presume only applies to Brits and maybe Europeans. There's also Wirecard Singapore which seems to be an even shoddier operation so these cards may or may not work depending on where you live.