A crypto card with an IBAN, cheap to hold and thin on paperwork — until the free limits run out

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

Brighty is the kind of product that solves one problem unusually well and leaves several others open. If what you want is a euro IBAN that accepts crypto, a virtual card you can load from a stablecoin and use in shops, and no monthly fee, it does that. If what you want is a physical card in the post, a large free foreign-exchange allowance, Apple Pay on Mastercard, or a long public track record of not closing accounts without explanation, the picture is much weaker.

I gave it 5.6 out of 10. That is not a rejection — it is a card that works well for a narrow job and is genuinely uncertain outside it. Below I walk through who gets one, what it costs, how you fund it, what happens on an ordinary shopping day, the things that can go wrong, and who I would actually hand it to.

The conditions described here are current as of October 28, 2026.

Verdict: 5.6 / 10 — narrow, useful, and rougher than it looks

The card suits EEA residents who want a crypto IBAN and a virtual card they can spend from a crypto balance without a monthly fee. It does not suit people who need a physical card in the post, a generous free currency-exchange allowance out of the box, Apple Pay on Mastercard, or a provider with a long clean complaint record. Here is how the score breaks down.

The word that keeps coming back is *unverified*. Plenty of what you will read about this card comes from a third-party comparison site rather than from Brighty itself, and I flag it where it appears. Where the company’s public pages simply do not say something, I say that too instead of guessing.

Will they give you the card?

Mostly, if you live in the European Economic Area — but the rule is not simply “is your country in the EU”, and there is at least one nationality restriction you should read carefully.

The Brighty card page is labelled “EEA only”. The app has since been extended to Montenegro and Andorra, with the company noting that availability “may vary by jurisdiction”. So there are three layers: an EEA base, two additions, and a discretionary check on top.

Then there is this, in the company’s own words: *“Due to regulatory restrictions, we are unable to onboard Russian nationals residing in Montenegro and Andorra.”* That is a nationality restriction attached to a place, not a general ban on Russian citizens elsewhere. I found no full country list on the official pages.

Third-party sites list 36 countries including the EU, the EEA, Switzerland, Montenegro, Andorra, San Marino, Monaco and Moldova. Treat that as unofficial; Brighty does not publish the list itself, and lists change.

The wider pattern is worth understanding before you apply, because it is not specific to Brighty. Identity checks exist because anti-money-laundering rules require regulated businesses to verify customers and monitor transactions. In the EU, that due diligence covers your name, address, date of birth, nationality and identity documents, a sanctions check, the purpose of the relationship, and whether you are a politically exposed person. If the checks cannot be completed, EU rules require the institution to hold back from the transaction or relationship and, where needed, end it — which is why accounts get closed or frozen. Nationality is screened separately from residence because sanctions and issuer risk policy often apply to citizenship and country of birth as well as country of address.

How to get it

You apply in the app, and the identity check runs inside it. Verification is handled in-app at sign-up; a help article names Sumsub as the verification provider. The tiers of checks are not defined on the pages I read, and the processing time is not stated, so if you need a card today, do not build your week around it.

What you will be asked for is quite specific. For proof of identity: a clear photo, your full name, date of birth, place of birth and citizenship. For proof of address: a utility bill or bank statement PDF no older than three months — screenshots are rejected — or an official registration confirmation, or a second official ID that shows your address.

The company also lists what gets an application thrown out, which saves everyone time if you know it up front:

• documents that are ambiguous, unclear, contradictory or incomplete
• an address that does not match the one you signed up with
• documents that are old or damaged
• blank fields, including a blank signature line

The card itself. The Brighty card page shows a virtual card, usable wherever Visa is accepted. The help centre, however, refers to three things: a physical Visa, a virtual Visa with no PIN, and a virtual Mastercard. That inconsistency is worth pausing on — the fees article describes the card as a virtual Mastercard, while the main page talks Visa. The card currency is not stated. If which network you get matters to you for Apple Pay or for merchant acceptance, ask support before you commit.

The card-issuance article says you can choose Virtual Card or Physical Card in the app, but it gives no countries, no timeframe and no cost. Replacement cost is not stated either. A third party reports that physical Mastercard orders are currently unavailable and that the help centre says they “will not be fulfilled”, with no cost or timeframe published and no replacement price. That is unofficial, but it matches the pattern of a virtual-first product, and it is the single most useful thing to know before you apply.

If something goes wrong, the fallback is email: [email protected].

Fees and what a payment really costs

The headline is good: EUR 2.99 to issue the virtual card, no monthly card service fee, balance inquiries free, up to 10 card issuances a month. After that the picture depends on which plan you are on and what you are spending in.

Where the card does not say something, I have written “not stated” rather than filling the gap. Several of those gaps are exactly the ones that decide whether this card works for you: the rate at which your crypto becomes euros, and the surcharge for paying in a currency other than the card’s.

Three everyday payments, and what actually applies.

A coffee bought in euros. If your balance is already in euros, you are paying the balance and nothing else. This is the clean case.

A coffee bought in dollars while your balance is in euros. Two things can happen: the in-app currency conversion if the balance is converted, and a foreign-currency fee at the merchant or network level. The card’s own exchange allowance is 0 on the One plan and then 0.6%; on Plus you get EUR 2,000 free per month and then 0.5%; on Pro, EUR 5,000 free and then 0.4%. Whether a foreign-currency charge applies on top is not stated.

A subscription priced in dollars, paid monthly from a card loaded from USDC. Here the crypto-to-fiat rate, the conversion allowance and any foreign-currency fee all land on the same small transaction, which is exactly where a 0.6% exchange fee becomes visible.

The three plans, as of a help article dated 15/09/26:

Note the first line of that table: One has no free foreign exchange at all. If you spend regularly outside the euro area and stay on the entry plan, every conversion is charged.

Subscription prices and the metal card are not stated on that page. A third party puts them at One free, Plus EUR 9 a month, Pro EUR 18 a month, and lists card limits of EUR 15,000 / 25,000 / 50,000 — which contradicts the official purchase limits of EUR 50,000 / 75,000 / 100,000. Where an unofficial source contradicts the card, I would believe the card.

ATMs. The Brighty card page claims acceptance at ATMs worldwide, but states no fee and no allowance. There is also an operational catch for the physical Visa: it must be used at an ATM with a new PIN after a PIN change in order to activate. Third-party reporting gives legacy Visa rates of Plus EUR 3.50 in the EEA and EUR 3.50 + 3.5% outside, Pro EUR 3 in the EEA and EUR 3 + 3% outside — but also says there is no dependable current ATM feature for the Mastercard. Treat ATM use as the least certain part of the product.

Top up options

This is the strongest part of the card, and it is where it beats most alternatives.

You can hold crypto in the app — Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDC are named, with the Brighty token featured — alongside an IBAN for fiat. So the same account can take a stablecoin transfer in one minute and a bank transfer the same afternoon.

Incoming money. Incoming crypto is free on all plans and has no monthly limit. Incoming SEPA costs 0.3% with a EUR 10 minimum, Faster Payments 0.3% with a EUR 10 minimum, SWIFT 0.7% with a EUR 50 minimum. Incoming fiat is capped at EUR 100,000 per month. The card-top-up fee and the minimum top-up are not stated.

Withdrawing crypto, at the same price on every plan with no monthly limit:

Supported withdrawal networks are Ethereum, Tron, Bitcoin, Cardano, Tezos, Islamic Coin, TON, Arbitrum, Solana, Polygon and BEP20.

Two things to know before you send anything. First, choose the network on the sending side, not the receiving side. Blockchain transfers are irreversible, so a deposit sent on a network the provider does not support, or to an address belonging to another network, can be lost or need manual support recovery with no guarantee. That is not a Brighty quirk; it is how transfers work.

Second, a network may still charge you even though the provider takes nothing. On-chain fees are paid to the blockchain, not to the card company. And on ERC-20 that fee is paid only in ETH, so a wallet holding USDT with no ETH cannot send at all.

There is a live example of why the network list matters. Circle stopped supporting USDC on Tron in February 2024, so “USDC over TRC20” is not a native option even where TRC20 appears on a fee table. Circle lists USDC as natively supported on 38 networks as of 16 September 2026, including Ethereum, Solana, Base, Polygon PoS, Avalanche, Arbitrum and Stellar.

Closing the account is where I would slow down. On a closure you initiate, the account is “scheduled for permanent deletion within 30 days”. What happens to any remaining balance is not stated on the page I read. If you are considering closing, get that answered by email first — it is exactly the kind of question that is far cheaper to ask before than after.

Paying with it every day

Day to day, it behaves like a prepaid card: crypto is converted and loaded as a balance, and the card spends only that balance, so it cannot overdraw. In that model the card number identifies the issuing institution through its first 6 or 8 digits, and a merchant’s lookup can reveal the card type and issuer country — which is why a card issued in one country can be treated more carefully by a shop in another. Some merchants decline prepaid or foreign-issued cards for exactly that reason.

Mobile wallets are the sharpest practical detail. A help article dated 26 May 2026 states that Apple Pay is currently unavailable for Mastercard cards because of technical updates, and is available for Visa; Google Pay works for Mastercard. If the card you receive is the Mastercard described in the fees article, Apple Pay is off the table. Apple Pay and Google Pay are both mentioned in connection with the Montenegro and Andorra launch. Blocked merchant categories are not stated.

At a shop that asks for a PIN. The help centre mentions a virtual Visa with no PIN. What happens with a virtual Mastercard and a physical purchase is not stated, and neither is what to do if a virtual card is refused in person.

Online payments run through 3-D Secure, which adds an identity check — the issuer assesses the risk and either approves frictionlessly or challenges you with a one-time code or biometric. Visa’s brand is Visa Secure, Mastercard’s is Identity Check. A declined authorisation can leave a hold on your funds for several days, typically up to seven.

Rewards. The card page says “Keep earning on your crypto while using it” — but it states neither a rate nor a payout, and cashback is not described. Third parties describe 0.5% base cashback in USDC on all tiers, 1.25%–1.75% in selected categories, monthly caps of 20 / 60 / 100 USDC on One / Plus / Pro, paid the following month to a “Reward Box”. Unofficial, and treat it as a claim rather than a term.

The app is listed in the App Store as “Brighty: Crypto Card & IBAN” with a 4.9 rating from 9 ratings on the Turkish storefront as I read it. Nine ratings is not a signal in either direction; a Google Play rating was not found.

What can go wrong

The things that worry me here are not exotic. They are ordinary.

Accounts closed without explanation. Trustpilot shows 3.2/5 from 78 reviews. The recurring themes: accounts closed without explanation, with the company citing policy or regulation; referral bonuses unpaid, with the company citing suspected referral abuse; instant transfers taking hours. Some reviewers praise the cashback. I found no card-specific complaints on Reddit.

Nobody will tell you who issues the card. Brighty describes itself as “a financial technology company, not a bank”, with accounts, cards, custody and on/off-ramp handled through unnamed licensed partners. No licence numbers appear on the pages I read. Third-party reporting from 2024 press coverage places Brighty in Switzerland and says it holds crypto-exchange and digital-asset custodian licences — that is not confirmed on official pages. This matters more than it first appears, because in a card payment the issuer is the bank or e-money institution actually behind the card, while the crypto brand is often just a programme manager or front-end.

Your money is not self-custody. Custody sits with Brighty. The official FAQ says: *“Brighty keeps user funds in segregated accounts that are specially secured”*, for both fiat and crypto, and the company says it works with penetration testers. No insurance is mentioned, and 2FA is not mentioned on the page I read. Segregated safeguarding is not the same as a bank deposit; e-money funds must be safeguarded in dedicated accounts or insured, but they are not covered by deposit guarantee schemes.

Offboarding is listed, and it is broad. Officially stated reasons for ending the relationship include suspected fraud, unclear source of funds, partner-provider concerns, and PEP or sanctions status. That is a normal list for a regulated business — and it also means account closure is a documented possibility, not an exception.

Nobody is on the phone. Support is email at [email protected] and a help centre at help.brighty.app. No phone, live chat or opening hours are listed. The help-centre language selector offers English, French, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian and Spanish — no Russian — and the languages the support staff actually speak are not stated.

No dispute process is described. The help centre has articles on refunds for unsupported crypto deposits and on wrong networks and unsupported cryptocurrencies, but I saw no card dispute or chargeback article. A third party likewise describes no dispute or chargeback process, and notes cashback can be reversed if a purchase is refunded or charged back. This is a real gap: a chargeback is the normal route to contest a payment, and its absence is not the same as its unavailability.

The sector’s own history is a warning. Custodial platforms have failed before — Mt. Gox (about US$350 million reported stolen, 2011–2014), Coincheck (about US$400 million, 2018), Ronin Network (US$625 million, 2022). And card programmes themselves have been switched off: WaveCrest, a Visa issuer supplying crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing all WaveCrest-issued Visa programmes; Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX on 13 November 2022. Closures typically follow a pattern — notice, then spending and loading stop, then you are asked to withdraw. Under EU rules, MiCA’s transitional period lets providers operating under national law continue only until 1 July 2026 or until they receive or are refused a MiCA authorisation, whichever comes first; ESMA keeps an interim register of authorised CASPs you can check a provider against.

One more, quieter risk. The card states ATM acceptance worldwide but publishes no ATM fee, no allowance, and — per third parties — no dependable current ATM feature for the Mastercard.

What to take instead

If the reason you are here is that an ordinary bank card is hard to get, it is worth looking at the alternatives side by side. Here is how they compare on the facts each provider publishes.

Where the alternatives win. The international Visa card scores higher than Brighty and, for a US-dollar spender, is simpler: card use in USD is free on every plan and there is no annual fee, against Brighty’s EUR 2.99 issuance and a 0.6% exchange rate from day one on the entry plan. Its 2% FX fee is worse than Plus or Pro, and its country exclusions are longer and include India, Turkey, Israel and Ukraine. Purchases are blocked in North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela, and FATF grey-list countries are reviewed case by case with compliance approval. Its rule is by residence or registration, with citizenship not mentioned — the opposite of Brighty’s nationality carve-out for Russians in Montenegro and Andorra. The physical card is “coming soon”.

UNi Card takes the opposite approach to fees: no annual fee, no foreign transaction fee, conversion at live OTC rates, “no hidden exchange fees”, and spend-to-earn rewards up to 3%. It sits on the Mastercard network and spends from the UNi.Global balance. What it does not tell you is who can get it, how you fund it, or whether the card is physical or virtual. For someone who spends across several currencies and only needs to know there is no FX markup, that silence is less costly than it sounds.

Whop Cards are the narrowest of the four and the clearest to rule on. Thirty-one US states for consumers, 41 for businesses; the unsupported-country list is long. It spends from a Whop balance that is backed by stablecoin collateral from a linked wallet, and it pays 5% cashback at select merchants, currently Uber. No fees are quantified, no card type is stated, and the coins and networks behind the collateral are not stated.

On the general shape of this market, a few background facts explain why the comparison is hard. Visa and Mastercard do not issue crypto cards to consumers themselves; they license issuers and can suspend a programme. A crypto card usually depends on two licences — one for the crypto side under MiCA, one for the card as a payment service under e-money and payment-services law. In the EU, an electronic money institution can issue e-money, payment cards and wallets but cannot lend. MiCA took legal effect in June 2023; its rules on stablecoins applied from 30 June 2024 and the remaining provisions, including crypto-asset service provider rules, from 30 December 2024. Under MiCA, e-money tokens may be issued only by a credit institution or an electronic money institution. In the US, FinCEN guidance (FIN-2013-G001) treats administrators and exchangers of convertible virtual currency as money transmitters, while ordinary users buying goods are not.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend Brighty if you are an EEA resident, or live in Montenegro or Andorra, and you want one account that holds crypto and gives you a euro IBAN and a virtual card. Especially if you move money mostly in euros, receive crypto for free, occasionally need SEPA out (EUR 0.5 + 0.3% on Plus and Pro rather than EUR 3 + 0.3% on One), and are content with a virtual card used online or in shops that accept it.

I would think twice if you need the physical card in the post — that is reportedly not being fulfilled right now — if Apple Pay on a Mastercard is non-negotiable, if you spend heavily outside the euro area and the One plan’s zero free exchange is what you would be on, if you need a documented dispute or chargeback process, or if account closure without a clear reason would be catastrophic for you rather than annoying. On the last point: 3.2 out of 5 across 78 reviews is not a disaster, but it is not the profile of a provider you would want holding the balance you depend on.

I would not treat the third-party numbers — 36 countries, plan prices, the cashback schedule, the ATM rates, the card-currency list, the issuer name — as terms. They are somebody’s reading of the product, not Brighty’s own, and one of them already contradicts the official page.

And one thing across all of these, not specific to Brighty: if you are in the US, digital assets are treated as property, so exchanging them for goods, services or dollars generally produces a taxable gain or loss measured in local fiat at the fair market value on the date of the transaction. Each card payment funded from crypto may be a separate disposal. That is a fact about your tax position, not advice about it — check it with whoever handles yours.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Brighty card?

The Brighty card is a virtual payment card attached to an account that holds both crypto and fiat, including an IBAN. You convert or load a balance and the card spends that balance, so it behaves much like a prepaid card and cannot overdraw. Brighty describes itself as a financial technology company, not a bank, and handles accounts, cards, custody and on/off-ramp through unnamed licensed partners.

Is Brighty a bank?

No. Brighty states plainly that it is “a financial technology company, not a bank”. Accounts, cards, custody and the on/off ramp are delivered through licensed partners the company does not name on the pages I read, and no licence numbers appear there. In a card payment the party that actually issued the card is a bank or e-money institution; Brighty is closer to the programme manager and front-end.

Which countries can get the Brighty card?

The card page is labelled “EEA only”, and the app has been extended to Montenegro and Andorra with availability that “may vary by jurisdiction”. There is one explicit nationality restriction: Russian nationals residing in Montenegro and Andorra cannot be onboarded due to regulatory restrictions. A third-party site lists 36 countries, but Brighty publishes no full list itself.

How do I get the Brighty card?

You apply and verify your identity inside the app; a help article names Sumsub as the verification provider. You need a clear photo of your ID with your full name, date of birth, place of birth and citizenship, plus proof of address — a utility bill or bank statement PDF from the last three months (screenshots are rejected), a registration confirmation, or a second official ID showing your address.

Does the Brighty card require KYC?

Yes, verification is required and runs at sign-up. The tiers of checks are not defined publicly and processing time is not stated. Documents get rejected if they are ambiguous, unclear, contradictory or incomplete, if your address does not match your sign-up address, if they are old or damaged, or if fields including the signature are left blank.

What does the Brighty card cost?

Issuing the virtual card costs EUR 2.99 on all plans, there is no monthly card service fee, balance inquiries are free, and you can issue up to 10 cards a month. The costs that bite are exchange: a free monthly allowance by plan, then 0.6% on One, 0.5% on Plus and 0.4% on Pro. The One plan has no free exchange allowance at all.

How do I top up the Brighty card?

Incoming crypto is free on every plan with no monthly limit, and Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDC are all supported in the app. You can also send fiat by SEPA or Faster Payments at 0.3% with a EUR 10 minimum, or SWIFT at 0.7% with a EUR 50 minimum, capped at EUR 100,000 per month. Pick the network carefully on the sending side: transfers are irreversible.

Can I add the Brighty card to Apple Wallet?

That depends on which card you receive. A help article dated 26 May 2026 says Apple Pay is currently unavailable for Mastercard cards because of technical updates, while it is available for Visa. Google Pay works for Mastercard. Since Brighty’s pages refer to both a virtual Visa and a virtual Mastercard, ask support which one you will be issued before you rely on Apple Pay.

Is the Brighty card safe?

Brighty holds your funds rather than you holding them yourself, and says they are kept in segregated accounts that are specially secured. No insurance and no 2FA are mentioned on the page I read. Safeguards you can control include freezing the card in the app, which is temporary and reversible, and terminating it, which cannot be reversed. Treat any balance here as money exposed to one company’s counterparty and operational risk.

What are the complaints about Brighty?

Trustpilot shows 3.2 out of 5 from 78 reviews. The recurring themes are accounts closed without explanation, with the company citing policy or regulation; unpaid referral bonuses, with suspected referral abuse cited; and instant transfers taking hours. Some reviewers praise the cashback. Separately, no card dispute or chargeback process is described anywhere I could find, which is worth noting before you rely on it for a large purchase.

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