Topic: Bitcoin Debit Cards (Read 5743 times)

Yep, KYC requirements have changed significantly in the plastic industry in the last 2 years. Of course in the name of "money laundering" and "terrorist financing" when in reality is all bullshit. Governments want to make sure nobody evades taxes. It is that simple.

in the UK there were anonymous single use Mastercards 6-10ukp purchase, 10 UKP min - 200-250UKP max. 50p charge per transaction. IDT prime for example.

These could be upgraded to reloadable, but then you needed to KYC, max 1650UKP.

At least that was the case to Dec 2010 when most switched to having some KYC requirement (minimum was a valid address, no idea if they checked against electoral roll), and required phone activation.

http://www.titaniumcashplus.co.uk/
http://www.freedom-card.co.uk/
http://www.ibux.co.uk

I don't know of any currently available to purchase that are truly anonymous.


marked

it would be cool if we can get one

A card of this type is possible, but it will take a multi-dicipinary approach, including a fair amount of capital, a BIN, and the ability to hedge cryptocurrency risk so that cardholder prices are comparable to people doing it themselves over a series of disconnected/manual transactions. 

So far, the ideas I've see are good, but reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the FATF, KYC and the US/global payment systems.

That is correct. There is nothing anonymous about GreenDot unless you pass codes p2p, but at some point somebody will have to cash out. If you want to reload a GreenDot card, you need to present KYC.

Can you point me to these cards? You are correct about the land of the free comment; however, MasterCard/Visa are a US company and impose the same requirements for any card they issue in the world. To my knowledge, if there are reloadable anonymous debit cards, they are being offered against MC/VISA terms and conditions and the issuer is at risk to loose their licensing.

We are not based in the US and still need to follow Visa/MasterCard guidelines. They are bound to AML and KYC compliance policies because they are a US company, no matter where the cards are issued. The bank issuing the previous cards we use to offer (gKards) lost their licensure overnight and all cards became useless because Visa/MC did an audit and found lax KYC requirements from the bank.

Guess we will have to resort to using gift cards.

Greendot is not anonymous.  Reloadable Greendot cards require Tax ID number (SSN), in addition to name and address.  In order to get a reloadable card, Greendot must verify a person's identity.  Unless they can verify you, they will not register a reloadable card.  In some cases, they require photocopies of state issued IDs.

Unreloadable Greendot cards can be used as gift cards but they are not the same as reloadable cards. 

Green Dot doesn't require any information.  Can be reloaded w/ moneypaks purchased without providing any information.

I know of a few anonymous debit cards--no ID required.  They have minor restrictions, such as a maximum cap on the card.  They are reloadable.

None of them are U.S. based, since the Land of the Free is anything but free. 

Our cards are not anonymous. There is no name on the card, not on the magnetic strip, but as licensed issuers we are required to collect KYC from our customers. There is no "legal" anonymous reloadable debit card. Neither MasterCard nor Visa allows it.

HI. PLEASE CONSIDER ANONYMITY WHEN PROVIDING THIS SERVICE.

Don't you think your mastercard service should be more like a prepaid green dot where there are no names, addresses, telephone numbers attached to the card?

I mean what's the point of an anonymous currency if the card we use in real life isn't anonymous?

I seriously doubt that banks will let people instant convert their BTCs into USDs during transaction, that means if you never spend at all that you'd never have to pay taxes. The government wants its share.

That current bankers suck. I'm not talking the guy on the counter, but the guy calling the shots.

What is that suppose to mean?

That would be awesome, and hopefully those banks will be ran by cooler people, and not the current banking brethren LOL.

Good response, thanks.  I suppose my point is, I am waiting for a bank to take on Bitcoin, and automatically exchange for USD as needed.  If Bitcoin becomes big enough, it WILL happen, just a matter of time.

Can you post up a picture of what the card looks like? You should make it a visually appealing card if you want people to use it. Most people take pride in their cards. Definitely better quality than MoneyMart offers.

I will definitely compare both cards later on.

I just checked the fees for the OkPay and they are significantly higher than ours. I can't post fees publicly due to contract requirements, but I will tell you this:

OKPAY FEES:
Card top-up    $3.00 <-- We don't charge a "top up" fee. The issuer charges one, but it is less than that.
ATM withdrawal    2% (min. $3, max. $15) <--- That is just nutty. The issuer charges a FIXED withdrawal fee that is LESS than that minimum.

It is not clear to me what is the fee for "loading" the card. Perhaps none if you load by OkPay, but what if you want to load Liberty Reserve/PerfectMoney/Bitcoin/etc? Then you have to daisy-chain exchangers to get your OkPay account funded, and the fees will go up to the roof. You can load our cards with 11 payment methods (if my memory serves me right).

I guess if you are going to withdraw OkPay balance only, it might be a good tool, but I don't think it would be that way if you intend to load other e-currencies.

These suggestions are definitely interesting!

A debit card loaded with BTC.
Right now, we only take vouchers as you pointed out, so no BTC. You have to sell your BTC at MtGox and/or Bitcoinica and then load to the card with a voucher. Loading straight from BTC should be possible very soon.

When I swipe the card, the BTC is traded for USD, which is used to give the payment to the merchant.
This wouldn't be doable, unless you are literally a bank. MasterCard/Visa allows different levels of integration to different levels of Licensure, if that makes sense. Think of it this way: Those debit card programs out there that load your card in 24 hours have access I. Our company has access II (Can transfer balances automatically to the card). Banks have access III (can do pretty much anything, receive charges in real time, can issue refunds, etc. Does not need a pre-funded account to "send balances" out to card holders with the issuer, because they are the actual issuer). I am a customer of a level III. Level I are customers of a level II.

I can keep my balance in BTC, but it is converted to USD automatically on an as-needed basis.
This is partially possible as follows: You would keep a BTC balance with us, and then "load" your card with the needed BTC as you see fit. No much use to this though since once we have direct BTC funding on our site, you will have the ability to load whenever you want.

The reason why we didn't implemented direct BTC funding right now is because you will most probably always get less bang from your BTC than if you trade your BTC directly at an exchanger, and use a voucher to load. The explanation to this is because if we take your BTC and give you USD (of course, picture large scale with our customer base) we will have to immediately sell the BTC for your USD in order to hedge properly. If we have to do that, we need to quote you less than what the exchanger is wiling to give us in order to hedge short time price fluctuations which are very real in the bitcoin world, so there you have it.

Once a mature market for futures and options emerge, we would probably able to hedge that way, and the fees should be less to load with BTC (in some cases, depending the options and futures our system is holding, it might be even cheaper than going through an exchanger).

Let me know your thoughts!
Roberto