Puerto Rico’s FV Bank Readies to Launch Business Visa Card Tied to Crypto

The U.S. licensed global challenger bank FV Bank announced Thursday (Oct. 28) that it will now be a Principal Member of Visa, according to a press release.

FV Bank will use this to establish itself as a full-service bank, offering Visa cards and traditional banking services. However, FV Bank will also offer digital asset custody kept alongside fiat currency in the same accounts and will work both with cryptocurrencies and companies that transact in them.

“Historically, the cards offered in the market that were somewhat compatible with digital assets have been offered only by a fragmented patchwork of program managers and non-bank FinTechs,” said Miles Paschini, co-founder and CEO of FV Bank, in the statement. “We are proud to be the first bank to provide a truly vertically-integrated solution that combines digital asset custody, traditional banking and card issuance services to our international customers.”

The release says the new Visa debit card will go with its suite of other services and should be available for both FV Bank’s business and individual account holders by the end of the year, putting them on a waitlist.

The FV Bank Visa will add the ability for account holders to obtain crypto-equipped cards for multiple authorized employees, all drawn from the same business account.

“FV bank plans to introduce credit card versions in early 2022 which will enable users to leverage digital assets as collateral for credit lines, which will be accessible via the FV Bank Visa card,” FV Bank Co-founder Nitin Agarwal said. “There is a huge demand for customers who do not want to sell their crypto but want access to spendable funds.”

Visa has also recently backed Deserve, a new startup promising credit-card-as-a-service features, with new capital.

See also: Visa Backs Credit-Card-as-a-Service Startup Deserve

PYMNTS writes that the credit card giant invested to keep Deserve’s expansion going to more banks, FinTechs and financial services providers.

Deserve co-founder and CEO Kalpesh Kapadia said the Visa money “validates the industry’s embrace of a digital-first, embedded approach driven by APIs and SDKs.”