Today my XAPO bitcoin debitcard has been deactivated without any prior warning. XAPO was using the services of Gibraltar based company WaveCrest. This morning I received below email from WaveCrest:
Dear Cardholder,
We, WaveCrest, are the issuer of your Visa Prepaid card, which you have enrolled for through one of our program partners. Visa have today instructed us that we must close all WaveCrest issued Visa Prepaid Cards with immediate effect.
How will this affect you?
Your WaveCrest-issued Visa Prepaid Card will no longer function. However, as your funds were stored in your e-wallet they will remain accessible to you via your wallet provider.
We thank you for your cooperation.
Yours sincerely
WaveCrest
A few hours later I received below email from XAPO:
Dear Cardholder,
Yesterday, January 4th 2018, the Xapo Card issuer Wave Crest Holdings, Ltd. was instructed by Visa® to close all cards of its Visa® programs effective immediately.
Unfortunately, Xapo did not receive any anticipated notice to prepare for - and have our cardholders prepare for - the cancellation of our Card program.
How does this change affect you?
Your Xapo Card has been deactivated, and you will not be able to use it for further payments or withdrawals. The rest of your Xapo account remains active, and you can continue to access your Xapo wallet balance and funds without interruptions. All other Xapo services are available for your use, as always.
If you currently have any pending transactions or refunds on your Xapo Card, we will work with WaveCrest to settle your pending transactions during the next few weeks.
What's next?
If you ordered the Xapo Card recently, you expected to have much more time to use it. This is why Xapo will offer you the option to claim a refund of your card order fee through your Xapo Account if you ordered your card on or after December 1st, 2017. If you qualify, we will email you soon with instructions.
As a token of our appreciation for being a loyal Xapo customer, once we are able to service Xapo Cards in your country again, we will offer you a new card free of charge.
We are hard at work to find alternative card solutions for you. The past years have shown what a powerful product a cryptocurrency payment card can be, and we are already in discussions with potential card issuers allowing Xapo to continue serving customers in Europe and beyond.
We are deeply sorry that we cannot continue to provide Xapo Cards until further notice - we are doing our best to find new and improved alternatives, and we hope to be back in your country soon.
If you have any questions or issues in the meantime, please reach out to our team.
Sincerely,
The Xapo Card Team
The above emails don’t explain the exact reason for deactivation. I searched for more information and found the following link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/01/05/visa-locks-bitcoin-payment-cards-crackdown-card-issuer/
Apparently Visa has terminated WaveCrest’s Visa membership due to continued non-compliance with their operating rules. All of WaveCrest’s Visa card programmes will be closed as a result. Apart from XAPO also debitcard services for BitPay, Bitwala, Cryptopay, Wirex, and TenX have been terminated because they also use WaveCrest. According to the reaction from Visa (“Visa has other approved card programmes that use fiat funds converted from cryptocurrency in a number of jurisdictions. The termination of WaveCrest’s Visa membership does not affect these other products.”) this is not an anti cryptocurrency action. I have not been able to find however what kind of non-compliance Visa is referring to. Some people suggest that this has to do with new legislation that came into force on January 1st but that would not explain the “continued non-compliance” Visa has mentioned. Visa and WaveCrest are not publicly explaining the non-compliance issues. I can only see that Visa has suddenly deactivated the debitcards of a large number of clients without prior warning and without a proper explanation.