Card battle heats up in Latam as Ripio and Bitso both announce crypto-enabled cards – Exchange Bitcoin News

Cryptocurrency debit and credit card offerings in Latam are booming, as two exchanges in the area plan to launch their crypto-enabled cards. Ripio, the Argentina-based exchange, and Bitso, a Mexican exchange, both announced the future launch of their cards, in partnership with Visa and Mastercard respectively, as a response to the rise in popularity of crypto in the region.

Crypto cards galore in Latam

The divide between the crypto market and the traditional banking world is disappearing, as more and more banking institutions adopt crypto and offer crypto services to keep their customers in-house. Two popular exchanges in Latam, Ripio and Bitso, have announced the launch of cryptocurrency-enabled cards that will allow their customers to make purchases with their crypto holdings present on these platforms.

In the case of Ripio, the company teamed up with Visa to produce an internationally accepted prepaid card to circumvent the difficulties that credit analysis poses for customers who want to access the instrument. The exchange expects this product to be a catalyst for people to use more crypto in their daily purchases and payments.

The Visa-based crypto card will offer cashback of 5% on purchases made, which will be credited to user accounts until October 31. Henrique Teixeira, global head of new business at Ripio, announced that the exchange believes that more than 250,000 customers will use this card by December, with an investment of almost $300,000 in the product.

Bitso’s Mastercard-based answer

Bitso, one of the largest exchanges in Latam by traded volume, has also announced its intention to launch a crypto-enabled card later this year. Bitso’s CEO, Daniel Vogel, is convinced that the crypto winter will not last long, and the launch of this instrument in partnership with Mastercard is a step that shows that the company is confident about the future of crypto assets.

Although the company did not announce the launch date, it explained that there is already a long waiting list for this debit card. Vogel stated that the instrument is aimed at helping customers’ needs. He explained:

We have seen certain patterns of users, on pay days money comes into Bitso and is exchanged into digital dollars and then we see them convert it back to pesos to make their payments, we are excited to see a latent demand.

Bitso’s card will also offer cashback and will be launched in Mexico first.

These launches go hand in hand with what digital markets data provider Kaiko found in a recent report, which says users in Latam are more interested in the “real world” applications of cryptocurrency than trading, with exchanges trying to reach more users with products for this purpose.

What do you think about the launch of crypto-enabled cards by Bitso and Ripio in Latam? Tell us in the comments section below.

Sergio Goschenko

Sergio is a cryptocurrency journalist based in Venezuela. He describes himself as late to the game, entering the cryptosphere when the price spike occurred during December 2017. He has a computer engineering background, lives in Venezuela and is influenced by the cryptocurrency boom on a social level, offering a different point of view on crypto success and how it helps the unbanked and underserved.

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