Another service provider is joining that Visa cryptocurrency card party in Japan.
London-based company Wirex, which offers cloud-based hybrid personal banking platform, has teamed up with Japanese financial services group SBI Holdings to launch a joint venture. The announcement follows the $3 million investment made by SBI Holdings in Wirex’s subsidiary in Japan early this year via its FinTech Fund.
The joint venture, called the SBI Wirex Asia, aims to deliver a Japanese cryptocurrency payment card and develop other co-businesses in the field of cryptocurrencies, distributed ledger technology (DLT), and payment.
Wirex, which enables over 900,000 customers in 130 countries to use cryptocurrencies on the Visa card networks around the world, is no stranger to Japan’s cryptocurrency sector. In 2016, the UK start-up released a virtual currency credit card via its mobile application.
This time, however, the new payments card will be backed by the Visa network, Imran Khan, head of communications at Wirex Global headquarters said.
“The Wirex payments card in Japan shall be backed by VISA, and will for the first time, offer customers Yen denominated spending anywhere the VISA sign is shown online or with merchants in physical stores,” Khan told CalvinAyre.com.
The partnership with SBI Holdings will help Wirex advance into traditional markets, while the Japanese company will gain access to the startup’s expertise and ties in the blockchain-based finance sector. Wirex, which also has an office in Kiev in Ukraine, is eyeing at expanding its presence around the world, particularly in Asia. Key markets, according to Khan, include Singapore and Malaysia, as well as India and China in the future.
“We see growth particularly apparent in Singapore, where our presence is growing sharply, although Malaysia is also a key market,” Khan said. “Going forward, we expect that India and China have the capacity for fast growth if political support and regulatory approval for innovative companies can be achieved.”
Wirex is the latest company to initiate a Visa-powered cryptocurrency card.
Earlier this month, Tokyo-based exchange bitFlyer introduced a reloadable Visa-powered prepaid card, which users can fund with BTC and use at stores in Japan that accept Visa cards.
bitFlyer’s prepaid cards are free to use, doesn’t require an admission fee nor will it charge an annual fee. However, there is a JPY30,000 (USD266) limit per load, as well as a monthly load limit of JPY120,000 (USD1,067) and a lifetime load limit of JPY1 million (USD8,894). The bitFlyer prepaid card has a five-year expiration date, and its balance cannot exceed JPY100,000 (USD889), according to the company.
