Bitmama launches first African physical crypto cards for in-store payments

Blockchain company Bitmama has announced today the launch of its new product – Physical Crypto Cards. This comes three months after Bitmama has successfully launched virtual crypto cards which allow users to spend crypto directly without having to first convert to fiat.

According to a press statement by the company. Bitmama’s physical crypto cards come on the heels of another recently deployed feature – Buy Crypto, Pay Later, a solution that allows users to borrow up to $150 loans to purchase and pay back within a given time period.  

Speaking on the launch of Bitmama’s Physical Crypto Cards, Akinbola Asalu, Chief Operating Officer at Bitmama said that the crypto cards have been introduced to enable the average African to make international payments without hassles. According to him:

“International payments for the average African is a complete hassle. This was quite evident during our team’s recent trip to Nairobi, Kenya for the African Tech Summit. While we paid for our flight tickets, visa fees, Airbnb, Bolt rides, and literally all forms of online payments with our Bitmama’virtual crypto cards, making the in-store payment was difficult as our local naira debit cards kept declining on POS devices and ATMs due to the $100/month FX spending limit on local cards, which has been recently lowered to $20/month by several local banks in Nigeria.  Hence, we had to resort to holding physical dollars, which is tough to source, in order to convert to local currency at a BDC.”

“Needless to say, this was the experience of the majority of international travellers at the event, who kept stopping by our booth to ask for physical cards. By popular request, we are again pleased to say that our physical crypto cards are here and have come to stay. Anyone can request and use these cards”, he adds.

Bitmama is the first mainstream African blockchain company to launch physical crypto cards. According to the company, this furthers its ambition to onboard the next billion crypto users by building lifestyle crypto products and pushing the narrative of crypto beyond trading.

Bitmama’s novel crypto cards allow users to spend directly with their cryptocurrencies, without converting to fiat. The company prides itself in helping thousands of users across Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and other countries, to facilitate millions of transactions annually through its diverse features including P2P, (Buy Crypto, Pay Later) BCPL, trading and crypto bill payments.

The new cards can be funded with stable coins – USDT, USDC, cUSD. So users can spend crypto directly without first converting to fiat. It has over $10,000 in monthly spending limits at the best rates for international spending. Also, the new card works on in-store payment options (e.g. POS terminals) and can be used to withdraw from ATMs anywhere in the world.

The cards also work for online payments for platforms like Bolt, Uber, Spotify, AWS, eBay, Asos, Facebook, among others. And, the card will be delivered to users anywhere in the world with no minimum deposit is required to get a card.