Card payment giant Mastercard and Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, have launched a prepaid crypto rewards card in Argentina.
The card is currently in the beta phase and will be available in the next few weeks. Users can make purchases and pay bills using the card with their national ID in crypto, including Bitcoin and Binance Coin, both online and in-store at “over 90 million Mastercard merchants worldwide.” It also offers cashback and has no fees on ATM withdrawals.
“Payments is one of the first and most obvious use cases for crypto, yet adoption has a lot of room to grow,” said Maximiliano Hinz, general director of Binance in Latin America.
Argentina, along with the rest of Latin America, is an up-and-coming crypto market, with 74% of the population favoring businesses accepting crypto over companies offering traditional payment options, according to a Ripple report.
Another report by Mastercard reveals that 51% of Latin Americans have already used cryptocurrency as a form of payment.
This is not the first crypto move the card company has made in Argentina. Last year, it partnered with Buenbit, an Argentinian and Peru crypto exchange, to produce a prepaid card.
Mastercard previously worked with Gemini on a rewards card
The company has also collaborated with a cryptocurrency exchange Gemini to produce a crypto rewards credit card. “As consumers go about spending in various acceptance locations, now they get a chance to earn rewards in the form of crypto,” said a spokesman.
The development in crypto cards comes as interest in the product rises. According to CouponFollow research, consumers are more than willing to ditch traditional cards for crypto ones.
“We found that Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC) are the most preferred cryptocurrency reward coins among our study’s respondents. This is understandable since these are some of the most valuable,” CouponFollow said.
The research also showed that consumers are interested in receiving different crypto rewards for using crypto credit cards, including cashback and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
“We found that 95% of our study’s crypto credit card holders are interested in receiving NFTs as a crypto credit card reward. Most top crypto rewards credit cards provide digital cash back when you dine out, get groceries, or buy those concert tickets you’ve been eyeing,” the survey says.
Mastercard’s rival, Visa, has also been active in the crypto card game. In Oct, it invested in Deserve, a credit card service company, after its successful partnership with BlockFi credit card.
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