Brighty card review
Available in USBrighty pitches itself as a crypto app with a card and a European IBAN: you hold Bitcoin, Ethereum or USDC in the app, convert what you need, and spend from a virtual Mastercard wherever it is accepted. The promise is convenience for people who do not have a regular bank card or who want to keep spending inside a crypto balance, but the details on the card page are unusually thin. This review walks through what Brighty actually publishes, where the numbers come from third-party sites, and where the gaps leave you guessing.
The conditions below are current as of October 28, 2026.
Verdict
Brighty scores 5.6 out of 10 in this review. The card does some things well, in particular a free virtual card, a low issuance fee, free incoming crypto, and a genuine IBAN for SEPA and SWIFT, but it loses marks because too many of the practical details are left to third-party sites to fill in, complaints on Trustpilot cluster around sudden account closures, and the physical card is effectively out of reach.
| Criterion | Mark | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Who can get it | 5/10 | EEA-only card page; app is now also available in Montenegro and Andorra; full country list not published |
| Cost | 7/10 | Free virtual card after a EUR 2.99 issue fee, free monthly service, in-app FX 0.6% to 0.4% over a free monthly allowance |
| Top-up options | 7/10 | Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC in app, incoming crypto free, plus an IBAN for fiat |
| Reliability and complaints | 4/10 | Issuer not named on official pages; Trustpilot 3.2/5 from 78 reviews, with several accounts closed without explanation |
| Everyday use | 5/10 | Virtual Mastercard; Apple Pay unavailable for Mastercard (available for Visa); Google Pay works; physical card orders reportedly not being fulfilled |
The card suits EEA residents who want a crypto-funded virtual card and a European IBAN in the same app and who are comfortable that the issuer is not named on the official site. It does not suit anyone who needs a physical card today, anyone who relies on Apple Pay with Mastercard, or anyone who would be put off by a 3.2-star public review profile.
Who will they give you the card
The card page itself is labelled “EEA only”, and the app has since been extended to Montenegro and Andorra. That gives you a rough idea of who Brighty is willing to take on, but Brighty has not published a full country list on the page I read. A third-party site, cryptocardhub, lists 36 countries including the EU, the wider EEA, Switzerland, Montenegro, Andorra, San Marino, Monaco and Moldova. That count is unofficial and not confirmed by Brighty.
One nationality rule is published and easy to miss: “Due to regulatory restrictions, we are unable to onboard Russian nationals residing in Montenegro and Andorra.” So the rule is a mix of where you live and, in two specific countries, what passport you hold. If you are in the EEA already, the card is open to you regardless of your citizenship unless that specific rule catches you. If you are in the UK, the US, or most of Asia, the picture from the official page is that you are not eligible.
Two things follow from this. First, the card is a residence product more than a citizenship product, and the country list can change quietly as regulators update their expectations. Second, the third-party country list is more generous than what the official page itself states, which is a recurring theme in this review: Brighty’s official pages are thin and the practical picture is partly assembled from outside sources.
How to get it
Sign-up happens in the app, and identity verification runs through Sumsub, a third-party KYC vendor that Brighty names in a help article. Brighty does not publish what the KYC tiers are, how long approval takes, or what to do if you get stuck, beyond a fallback email to [email protected].
What the help center does spell out is the document checklist. For proof of identity you need a clear photo that shows your full name, date of birth, place of birth and citizenship. For proof of address you need a utility bill or bank statement in PDF form, no older than three months (screenshots are rejected), or an official registration confirmation, or a second official ID that carries your address. Common rejection reasons are documents that are ambiguous, unclear, contradictory or incomplete, an address that does not match the one you signed up with, old or damaged documents, and blank fields including the signature. That is the level of detail a normal bank would give you, which is a small plus.
On the card side, the help center distinguishes between a physical Visa, a virtual Visa (no PIN) and a virtual Mastercard. The card currency is not stated on the pages I read. The card issuance article says you can pick a Virtual Card or a Physical Card in the app, but it does not give delivery countries, timeframes, replacement cost or shipping fees. A third-party site, cryptocardhub, says physical Mastercard orders are not being fulfilled at the moment and that the help center states they “will not be fulfilled”, but again that is unofficial.
In practice this means you should expect to be issued a virtual card and to wait for any physical card to become available. If a physical card is important to you, that uncertainty is a real cost.
What it really costs
The official fees article is short, which is itself a signal. What Brighty publishes is a EUR 2.99 fee to issue a virtual card, no monthly service fee, and a free balance inquiry. You can issue up to ten cards per month. The physical card price is not stated. Inside the app, currency exchange has a free monthly allowance that depends on your plan, with fees of 0.6%, 0.5% and 0.4% above the allowance for One, Plus and Pro respectively. The fee for paying in a foreign currency is not stated on the page I read.
Plans come in three tiers, One, Plus and Pro, in a help article dated 15 September 2026. Brighty does not publish the subscription prices on that page, which is frustrating. cryptocardhub says they are EUR 0 for One, EUR 9 a month for Plus and EUR 18 a month for Pro, but you should treat that as unofficial until Brighty prints the prices itself.
| Fee or limit | One | Plus | Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual card issue | EUR 2.99 | EUR 2.99 | EUR 2.99 |
| Monthly card service | Free | Free | Free |
| In-app FX above free allowance | 0.6% | 0.5% | 0.4% |
| Cards included | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Card purchase limit, daily / monthly | EUR 50,000 / 50,000 | EUR 75,000 / 75,000 | EUR 100,000 / 100,000 |
| Outgoing fiat, daily / monthly | EUR 30,000 / 250,000 | EUR 30,000 / 250,000 | EUR 30,000 / 500,000 |
| Free FX per month | EUR 0 | EUR 2,000 | EUR 5,000 |
| SEPA / Faster Payments out | EUR 3 + 0.3% (min EUR 10) | EUR 0.5 + 0.3% | EUR 0.5 + 0.3% |
| SWIFT out | 0.9% (min EUR 50) | 0.9% (min EUR 50) | 0.9% (min EUR 30) |
| Max fiat account balance | EUR 100,000 | EUR 250,000 | EUR 500,000 |
The official numbers above come from Brighty’s help article and its fees article. There is a direct contradiction between Brighty and cryptocardhub on card purchase limits: Brighty says EUR 50,000, 75,000 and 100,000 for One, Plus and Pro, while cryptocardhub reports unofficial lower limits of EUR 15,000, 25,000 and 50,000. The table above uses Brighty’s numbers. If the lower ones turn out to be right, the gap is material for higher spenders.
Three everyday situations help pin the cost down. First, paying for groceries with a card balance that you topped up in euros the day before, on the One plan, costs nothing beyond the EUR 2.99 you paid for the card. Second, paying for the same groceries in a currency other than your balance currency, on the One plan with no free FX allowance, costs 0.6% on top of the network’s exchange rate. Third, withdrawing cash from an ATM with the physical card: Brighty’s card page claims acceptance “at ATMs worldwide”, but the fee and allowance are not stated, and cryptocardhub says there is no dependable ATM feature for the Mastercard at the moment, with unofficial legacy Visa rates of around EUR 3.50 inside the EEA on the Plus plan. That is the kind of gap where a quiet surprise can land on your statement.
Top up
The headline funding route is crypto. You hold Bitcoin, Ethereum or USDC inside the Brighty app and convert to a spendable balance when you pay. Incoming crypto is free on every plan and the monthly limit is unlimited, which is one of the better features. Outgoing crypto to your own wallet uses the same network you deposited on, and Brighty lists the supported networks as Ethereum, Tron, Bitcoin, Cardano, Tezos, Islamic Coin (HAQQ), TON, Arbitrum, Solana, Polygon and BEP20. Outgoing fees are flat across plans with no monthly cap: ERC20 EUR 3, TRC20 EUR 3, BTC EUR 20, ADA EUR 1, XTZ EUR 1, HAQQ EUR 1, TON EUR 3, ARB EUR 3, Solana EUR 3, Polygon EUR 3, BEP20 EUR 3.
Fiat comes in through the IBAN. Incoming SEPA costs 0.3% with a EUR 10 minimum, Faster Payments 0.3% with the same minimum, and SWIFT 0.7% with a EUR 50 minimum. The monthly incoming fiat limit is EUR 100,000. The card top-up fee and any minimum top-up amount are not stated on the pages I read.
Two practical warnings. First, crypto transfers are irreversible, so the network you choose has to match the network the receiving address is set up for; Circle stopped supporting USDC on Tron in February 2024, so “USDC over TRC20” is not a native option and a deposit sent that way can be lost or need manual recovery. Second, on-chain network fees for your deposit are charged by the blockchain itself, not by Brighty, so even an “incoming crypto is free” promise does not cover the gas you pay to send it. None of this is Brighty-specific, but it is the kind of detail you want to be clear about before your first top-up.
Paying with it every day
The card is a virtual Mastercard, and the Mastercard side matters because Apple Pay and Google Pay are not symmetric here. The help article dated 26 May 2026 says Apple Pay is currently unavailable for Mastercard cards, with technical updates pending, while it is available for Visa. Google Pay works for Mastercard. If you are deciding between the two, and you live on Apple Pay, that single fact is enough to push you towards the Visa until Apple Pay on Mastercard comes back, or to push you off Brighty if you specifically want tap-to-pay on iPhone.
A few other everyday items. Brighty’s card page says “Keep earning on your crypto while using it”, but the rate and payout are not described; cryptocardhub says the cashback is 0.5% in USDC on all tiers, with selected categories at 1.25% to 1.75% and monthly caps of 20, 60 and 100 USDC for One, Plus and Pro, paid the next month into a Reward Box. That is unofficial and unconfirmed. Blocked merchant categories are not stated, so the only safe assumption is that whatever is normal for a prepaid card applies, and you should expect gambling and similar high-risk categories to be on or off the list depending on Brighty’s policy at the time. The App Store listing for the Turkish storefront, read on 20 October 2026, shows “Brighty: Crypto Card & IBAN” with a 4.9 rating from 9 reviews; the Google Play rating was not found.
Two things to know about everyday problems. Brighty does not describe a card dispute or chargeback process in its help center. cryptocardhub agrees: no dispute or chargeback process is described, and cashback can be reversed if a purchase is later refunded or charged back. A declined authorisation can leave a hold on your balance for several days, typically up to seven, which is normal across the industry but worth knowing if you re-attempt a payment quickly.
What can go wrong
Brighty is a financial technology company, not a bank. That sentence is from Brighty’s own pages, and it is the single most important fact for risk. Brighty holds custody of your funds and works with unnamed licensed partners for accounts, cards, custody and the on- and off-ramps between crypto and fiat. No licence numbers are printed on the pages I read. cryptocardhub reports that Brighty is based in Switzerland and that 2024 press coverage referred to crypto-exchange and digital-asset custodian licences, but that is unofficial and not confirmed on Brighty’s own site.
The Trustpilot score, on the nl-be page, is 3.2 out of 5 from 78 reviews, and three themes come up again and again. First, accounts closed without explanation. Brighty’s published reasons for offboarding include suspected fraud, unclear source of funds, partner-provider concerns, and PEP or sanctions status, which is the language of risk policy rather than customer service. Second, referral bonuses not paid, with Brighty citing suspected referral abuse. Third, instant transfers that take hours. There is praise in the reviews too, mostly around cashback, but the pattern of account closures is the part to weigh.
On custody, Brighty says fiat and crypto are kept in segregated accounts that are “specially secured”, that it works with penetration testers, and that you can freeze or terminate the card in the app. Freeze is temporary and you can unfreeze; termination cannot be reversed. Two-factor authentication is not mentioned on the page I read, and no insurance of customer funds is mentioned. The help center is in English, French, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian and Spanish, but not Russian, and the only support contact listed is [email protected], with no phone, live chat or published hours.
Two closing risks worth keeping in mind. Card programmes have been shut down before: Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX in November 2022, and WaveCrest was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing every WaveCrest-issued Visa programme overnight. The crypto side of Brighty also sits inside MiCA, the EU’s markets-in-crypto-assets regulation, which started applying to crypto-asset service providers from 30 December 2024 with a transitional period running until 1 July 2026. The regulatory floor is rising, and the way providers respond to that floor shows up in the kind of account closures you see on Trustpilot.
What to take instead
Three cards sit next to Brighty in the same corner of the market: a card-plus-balance app with stablecoin funding, a virtual and physical Visa from a smaller brand, and a US-issued prepaid Visa that leans on stablecoin collateral. None of them is a like-for-like replacement, and you should pick the alternative that lines up with the part of Brighty you actually wanted.
| Card | Score | Best for | Country reach | Card type | Funding | Cashback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whop Cards | 5.2/10 | US-based individuals and teams spending from a Whop balance | 31 US states for consumers, 41 for businesses; long list of unsupported countries | Visa | Stablecoin-backed Whop balance | 5% at select merchants (Uber and more planned) |
| Stella | 6.5/10 | Users outside the US who want a Visa that works at 40 million merchants | Not stated officially; routes US and EU users through affiliates | Virtual and physical Visa | Crypto deposit, auto top-up | No card cashback stated |
| UniFi Card | 4.7/10 | US residents who want a prepaid Visa denominated in USD with USDC funding | Send-money routes to the Philippines, Mexico, eurozone, with Colombia, Brazil and the UK added recently | Prepaid Visa, issued by Lead Bank; Apple Pay in app | ACH, wire, SEPA, SPEI, USDC | 3% on balances claimed; card cashback not stated |
Whop Cards is the most US-centric of the three, with a stablecoin-collateralised Whop balance and 5% cashback at a small set of merchants. It suits someone who already runs a business on Whop, less so an EEA resident. Stella is closer in feel to Brighty, with a virtual and physical Visa, custodial crypto funding, and a more global user base, but Brighty’s own pages say more about pricing and limits than Stella’s do. UniFi Card is the US-only option with a named issuer (Lead Bank), an Apple Pay-ready app and USDC funding, but the card cashback picture is thinner than Brighty’s third-party description and the score reflects that.
Who I would recommend it to
Brighty is a reasonable fit for an EEA resident who wants a free virtual Mastercard, a European IBAN, and free incoming crypto in the same app, and who is comfortable that the card issuer is not named on Brighty’s own pages and that the public review profile has a real tail of account-closure stories. If that is you, the value is real: the card is cheap, the network coverage is wide, and the IBAN gives you a euro balance, a SWIFT option, and SEPA in and out without leaving the app.
It is not a fit if you need a physical card in your hand, if you want Apple Pay with Mastercard today, if you want a clearly licensed issuer you can find in a public register, or if the Trustpilot pattern of unexplained closures is the kind of thing that would make you stop using the card. In those cases, the alternatives above, particularly Stella for a Visa with global reach or UniFi Card for a US-resident USD balance with a named issuer, will suit you better.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Brighty card?
The Brighty card is a virtual Mastercard, with a Visa option, that spends from a balance held inside the Brighty app. The app combines an IBAN fiat account, custody for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDC, and a payment card, so you can top up with crypto or fiat, convert in the app, and pay wherever the card network is accepted.
How does the Brighty card work?
You create an account in the Brighty app, complete identity verification, and choose a virtual card. You fund the card by sending crypto to the in-app wallet or by receiving SEPA, Faster Payments or SWIFT into the IBAN. At payment time the app converts the balance to the card currency at the published rate, deducts any FX fee above your plan’s free monthly allowance, and the card settles like a normal Mastercard or Visa transaction.
Is Brighty a bank?
No. Brighty states on its own pages that it is a financial technology company, not a bank, and that accounts, cards, custody and the on- and off-ramps are provided through licensed partners. No partner names or licence numbers are published on the pages I read, so the practical answer is that your funds sit with a partner, not with Brighty itself.
Who owns Brighty?
Brighty’s ownership is not stated on the public pages I read. cryptocardhub reports that Brighty is based in Switzerland, and a September 2024 press release on StreetInsider described the company as holding crypto-exchange and digital-asset custodian licences; both of those points are unofficial and not confirmed on Brighty’s own site.
Is the Brighty card available in my country?
The card page is labelled “EEA only” and the app is also available in Montenegro and Andorra. A full country list is not published; cryptocardhub lists 36 countries including the EU, the wider EEA, Switzerland, Montenegro, Andorra, San Marino, Monaco and Moldova, but that count is unofficial. One nationality rule is published: Russian nationals residing in Montenegro and Andorra cannot be onboarded.
Does the Brighty card require KYC?
Yes. Identity verification runs in the app through Sumsub, a third-party KYC vendor, and you need proof of identity and proof of address before you can use the card. The KYC tiers, processing time and the exact rules around re-verification are not stated on the public pages I read.
How do I top up the Brighty card?
You can top up by sending Bitcoin, Ethereum or USDC to the in-app wallet, or by receiving SEPA, Faster Payments or SWIFT into the IBAN. Incoming crypto is free on all plans with no monthly limit; incoming SEPA and Faster Payments cost 0.3% with a EUR 10 minimum, and SWIFT costs 0.7% with a EUR 50 minimum. Outgoing crypto is charged per network, from EUR 1 on Cardano, Tezos and HAQQ up to EUR 20 on Bitcoin.
Is the Brighty card free?
The virtual card costs EUR 2.99 to issue, monthly service is free, and balance inquiries are free. Plan subscriptions (One, Plus and Pro) are not priced on Brighty’s help article; cryptocardhub lists them as EUR 0, EUR 9 and EUR 18 a month, but those numbers are unofficial. In-app FX above the free monthly allowance costs 0.6%, 0.5% or 0.4% depending on the plan.
How do I add the Brighty card to Apple Wallet?
You can add the card to Google Pay, which works for Mastercard. Apple Pay is currently unavailable for the Mastercard card according to Brighty’s help article dated 26 May 2026, with technical updates pending; Apple Pay is available for the Visa. If tap-to-pay on iPhone is essential, the Visa is the only Brighty card that supports it today.
How do I delete my Brighty account?
The help center says that on user-initiated closure the account is “scheduled for permanent deletion within 30 days”. What happens to the remaining balance during that 30 days is not stated on the pages I read, so the safe move is to withdraw your balance before you start the closure process and to keep records of the transactions for the next tax filing.
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