- Wirex is now a principal member of payments giant, Visa.
- This means they can issue Visa accounts and process transactions.
- The company will soon launch a card in the US.
source
It's not that I'm planning to spend my BTC, ETH, or any other cryptocurrency I'm holding, but I wanted to be ready when time comes, to be able to act fast. Time is of the essence when it comes to exchanging, selling, buying, so today I finally took the time to register to Wirex and get my account verified.
Wirex is a London-based crypto-payments platform, the second crypto-native company after Coinbase to get Visa membership and the power to issue Visa accounts plus process transactions.
It’s the payment card that makes crypto and traditional currencies equal. Realtime point-of-sale conversion, zero exchange fees and up to 1.5% bitcoin rewards on all spending. Join the waiting list today and get it first. source
It's an app with a debit card that allows you to pay with crypto by automatically converting it into fiat currencies. You can register in just a few minutes, get your account verified, connect things and you're all set.
This is the list of supported countries, please check the options and features available for each country.
These are the four features available and if you're lucky, your country has all four of them.
I've started on desktop and then have been transferred to mobile but I guess you can do it on mobile entirely if you like. So let's see the process. I've made mockups to be easier for you.
This one is easy if your country is on the list. Select the country, type your email address and get to Password. The app is generating a password for you, if you don't have anything smart in your mind at the moment of registration, you can use their generated code of 15 digits.
Home address is required.
Next your first name, last name and date of birth, which must be selected, rolling back the calendar. So if you're an older edition, prepare yourself to click a lot.
You also need to declare if you're a US Citizen.
Phone number is next, and then verification. The app sends you a six figure verification code to your phone, that helps you verify your phone number.
Then you need to verify your identity.
And this is where things get interesting. The QR code takes you to their app, where you need to verify your phone number, then your identity, which consists in taking a photo of your ID, passport and I believe there are other options too, like drivers license.
I chose local ID as my passport is a bit complicated, so I took a photo of the front and back of my local ID. The back photo needed to be repeated as it said it wasn't readable.
Then I had to take a selfie, which was quite funny as I don't do selfies but this is serious business, so I took a selfie :D. Then it said on my selfie it can be seen multiple faces (wtf????) so I had to take another one, which was fine.
Then I was told they need to verify my data which can take from a few minutes to 24 hours, but I got the confirmation of verification in two or three minutes, so that was fast. And that was all.
Although there are no exchange fees with Wirex, not everything is for free. There's a monthly maintenance fee of €1.20, which means €14.4/year. Sending money in euros or receiving payments in euros is free. Cash withdrawal in euros in Europe is €2.25/per withdrawal, and for cash withdrawal in a foreign currency outside Europe you'll need to pay €2.25, plus 3% of the transaction value. ATM balance enquiry is also not free, you are charged €0.23/enquiry.
Each device you're using is verified and you can check the list of verified devices on your profile.
There's also a two-factor verification option, you can add a second layer of protection with 2FA.
There's also an Auto-logout time option on desktop, that is set to 10 minutes by default but you can set it to 20 minutes if you like. And yes, you're logged off after 10 minutes and you have to log in again.
Wirex also has a cashback program called Cryptoback based on which users are rewards when holding the Wirex native token, WXT.
Cards can be ordered only after the Wirex account has been successfully verified. There's a waiting list, so hurry up :)
Wirex payment cards are issued together with their associated currency account. The card and account have the same balance, which allows you to top up your Wirex account using traditional methods such as bank transfer. At the moment, the associated currency account can only be created with the GBP and EUR payment cards and is not available for other currencies yet. source
Here's my referral link if you'd like to register.
