Binance Joins Argentina’s Crypto Prepaid Cards Boom

Global cryptocurrency exchange Binance launched a crypto prepaid card in Argentina in partnership with Mastercard, the company announced Thursday.

The product is in beta phase and will be widely available in coming weeks, said Binance – which is headed up by CEO Changpeng Zhao – noting that all exchange customers in Argentina with a valid ID will be allowed access.

Card users will be able to make purchases and pay bills globally with cryptocurrencies at physical and online merchants accepting Mastercard. Crypto will be converted to fiat in real time at point of purchase. Customers can also earn up to 8% in crypto-cash back.

Argentina is the first Latin American country to debut a Binance crypto card. The company rolled out a similar offering in the European Economic Area in August 2020.

“Payments is one of the first and most obvious use cases for crypto, yet adoption has a lot of room to grow,” Maximiliano Hinz, general director of Binance in Latin America, said in a statement. “By using the Binance card, merchants continue to receive fiat and the users pay in cryptocurrency they choose.”

Argentina is a competitive location for the crypto-card segment, with three local exchanges having begun their own offerings in recent months.

In December, Lemon Cash – with 1.3 million users – began offering a crypto card in partnership with Visa that pays 2% cashback. Earlier in 2021, Buenbit – an exchange with 700,000 users – partnered with Mastercard and digital wallet BKR on a card.

Also last year, Belo – teaming with Mastercard – began offering its 170,000 customers a card with cashback ranging from 2% to 21%.