A crypto Visa with 150+ countries on paper and a long list of things it does not tell you

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

MaaarPay is one of a growing crowd of cards that let you spend crypto without first converting it to a bank balance. You load a wallet with stablecoins such as USDT or USDC, the card converts what you spend, and Visa handles the rest at the till. On paper it solves a real problem: getting an ordinary bank card when your bank will not open one for you. What I found reading its public pages is a product that is unusually open about who it accepts and unusually quiet about what it charges.

My overall score is 6.7 out of 10. That is a pass mark, not an endorsement. The card suits you if you already hold crypto, you need a Visa number in your pocket this week rather than a plastic card next month, and you are comfortable with a fintech you have to test for yourself rather than one whose terms read like a bank’s. It does not suit you if you live in a country where you would need to try — the eligibility list is not published — or if you cannot tolerate an unstated crypto conversion fee on every purchase.

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

The specific reader this page is written for is anyone, anywhere, who has trouble getting an ordinary bank card. If that is you, the appeal of a Dubai-based programme with a Visa licence and a stated 150+ country reach is obvious. The catch is that the people most likely to need this card are also the people most likely to be turned away by a compliance officer with discretion. Read the eligibility section before you read anything else.

Will they give you the card

Yes, broadly — with one hard exclusion you need to know about, and a long list you will not get.

The card’s own site says it is “available in 150+ countries”. That is a marketing number without a country list attached, and the list is not stated anywhere on the public pages I read. If you live somewhere unusual, you cannot self-check. The one rule that is written down is a nationality rule: the terms require users to attest that they are “not a United States citizen”. The terms also refer to OFAC sanctions. Whether that test is about citizenship or residence is not stated — and the distinction matters, because a sanctions screening regime typically applies to citizenship and country of birth as well as to where you live.

For the reader who cannot open a bank account, this is the crux of the whole review. A product with a soft, unpublished country list is a product whose answers depend on the risk officer reading your application that day. My read of the eight out of ten here is generous because the sanctions language and the citizenship attestation are at least stated plainly, rather than buried in a sub-clause. But you should treat availability as probable, not certain.

Age is also not stated. The general rule across this category is that prepaid and debit cards go to adults, some issuers setting higher limits, so if you are under 18 you should expect the answer to be no regardless.

How to get it

The route is an ordinary app sign-up with identity verification in the middle, and what you get at the end is a digital card immediately, not a piece of plastic in the post.

• Sign-up includes what the card calls “secure identity verification”. The documents you need, any proof of address requirement and any age rule are not stated. There is an AML & KYC Policy on the site, which is where those details would normally live; I did not read it.
• You get a digital card instantly in the app. The physical card is marked “(Coming soon)” — not merely slow, not available in some countries, but not yet available.
• It is a Visa. Cards are issued by third-party licensed institutions, not by MaaarPay itself, which matters because Visa’s rules, not MaaarPay’s, decide whether the programme keeps running.
• Foreign transactions are converted to USD by the card association. That is the conversion step your fee questions eventually land on.

Nothing in the sign-up tells you what happens at the end of the process, so treat any friction as possible rather than exceptional. Keep copies of whatever you submit: if verification stalls, that is the evidence you will need.

Fees and what they do to an ordinary purchase

This is where the card is weakest, and the reason it lost three points out of four on cost. Two percentage fees are stated. The one fee you most want to see — the crypto conversion charge — is not.

Take an everyday purchase and count the layers. A coffee bought in a country that does not use dollars is the worst case: the merchant charges you in the local currency, the card association converts that to USD, and the card adds up to 2% on top. If the transaction also crosses the issuer’s own border rules, the Cross Border Fee of up to 3% can apply as well. I am not summing those percentages for you — the card’s own terms do not say whether they stack, and that is exactly the kind of thing you want in writing before you rely on the card in a country where you spend daily.

The unstated crypto conversion fee is the gap that should worry you most, because it applies to the core use case. You load USDT, the card converts it to pay a shop, and somewhere in that step is a spread. Every card in this category takes one; this card does not publish it. The 0% APR is genuinely stated, and genuinely temporary (“for now”) — read it as a promotional rate, not a structural feature.

Two everyday payments, and what applies:

• A $30 supermarket shop in a euro country. Merchant prices in euros; conversion to USD by the card association; foreign exchange fee up to 2%. Crypto conversion fee may also apply and is not stated. Cash-like categories are restricted, so this is the good case.
• A hotel deposit abroad. Same currency conversion, plus the risk of a hold: a declined authorisation can leave a hold on your funds for several days. The issuer may cap purchases by dollar amount and number, and no amounts are published, so a large hold may simply fail.
• A gambling or crypto-purchase transaction. Restricted by policy, not by law, and the restricted list is not published. Expect a decline at the till, in front of people.

How to top up

You fund it from crypto, not from a bank. The wallet is loaded with USDT, USDC or another supported crypto, and the home page also lists BTC.

The mechanics are a transfer, and this is where people lose money. The card holds collateral in stablecoins on Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism and Arbitrum, so those are the networks the product works on. The deposit instructions live in a help-centre article called “Deposit crypto”, and the network list you need for the transfer itself is not stated in the places I read — that article is where you confirm it, and you should confirm it before you send anything.

Why this is worth being slow about. Blockchain transfers are irreversible, and the fee for your deposit is charged by the blockchain, not by the card. If you send on a network the provider does not support, or to an address belonging to a different network, the funds can be gone or need manual support recovery with no guarantee. Stablecoins are also not censorship-proof: Tether states it disables tokens in wallets on the OFAC sanctions list and has frozen funds tied to illicit activity. That cuts both ways — it is a reason stablecoins can be recovered when stolen, and a reason they are not a privacy tool.

You can also withdraw crypto from the wallet to an external wallet, with a linked help article and fees I did not read. Before you fund it, check the withdrawal side as well as the deposit side: the issuer may suspend or cancel the account “with or without cause”, and what happens to a balance at that point is not stated.

Paying with it every day

It behaves like a prepaid Visa funded by crypto, which is the honest way to think about it — and, in the category at least, the safer way, because a stored balance cannot overdraw.

• Wallets. The digital card works with Apple Pay and Google Pay. Apple Pay replaces the card number with a device-specific number stored in the Secure Element and never on Apple servers, so adding the card to your phone is the least interesting risk in this review.
• Freezing. You can freeze and unfreeze the card at any time in the app. For anyone who has had a card skimmed, this is the single most valuable feature on the offer.
• Restrictions. Cash-like transactions are restricted — money orders, crypto purchases and gambling fall in that group. The list is not published in detail, and category restrictions are policy rather than law, so a merchant type that works for one issuer’s card can be blocked for another.
• Cash. ATM withdrawals “in over 150 countries” are advertised, and marked coming soon along with the physical card. The terms state plainly that cash advances and balance transfers are not available. The FAQ talks about using ATMs; the terms pull the other way, and while this card is digital, you should not plan a cash strategy around it.
• Disputes. Resolve with the merchant first, then start a Chargeback in the account. Report within 60 days of posting. The terms mention AAA arbitration and waive class actions — read that waiver if an amount is large enough to care about.

What can go wrong

Nothing has gone publicly wrong, and that is both the good news and the reason to stay alert.

The company behind it is MAAAR PAY FZCO, registered in the DMCC free zone in Dubai, Licence No. DMCC-981512, Reg. No. DMCC202616, with a subsidiary MAAAR CIRCLE PAYMENTS LTD. in British Columbia, Canada (BC1585437). The company describes itself as a “technology service provider and does not provide banking or money transmission services”. The issuer is defined as Third National, under a Visa licence, and BANEX MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED is named for Nigerian users. That structure — a brand that is explicitly not a bank, an issuer that is a different legal entity, a network that can suspend the programme — is normal for this category and worth keeping in your head.

I found no complaints about the card, and no Trustpilot page. Absence of complaints is weak evidence on a young product: it means nobody has written about it publicly, not that nothing has happened.

The realistic risks are the general ones:

• Programme closure. Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX on 13 November 2022 and the FTX US debit card was wound down. Visa suspended WaveCrest in Europe in 2018, closing all WaveCrest-issued Visa programmes. Closures typically mean a notice period, then loading and spending stop, then you are asked to withdraw your balance. There is no way to insure against this.
• Conversion failure. Stablecoins can depeg — TerraUSD collapsed in May 2022, USDC briefly lost its peg in March 2023. If you are spending a depegged asset, your balance is worth less than the card assumes.
• Merchant declines. Some merchants decline prepaid or foreign BINs because the lookup reveals the card type and issuer country, and address verification is generally unavailable for foreign-issued cards, which can cause declines at hotels and car rentals.
• Holds. A declined authorisation can leave funds held for days, typically up to 7.
• Account closure. The issuer may suspend or cancel with or without cause; balance handling at closure is not stated.
• Tax. I am not giving tax advice, and this is not tax advice: the general position is that digital assets are treated as property, so exchanging them for goods or dollars generally produces a taxable gain or loss measured in local currency at the date of the transaction. Each card payment funded from crypto may be a separate disposal. Check your own position.

Support runs through a Help Center, FAQs and a contact form, with [email protected], a Telegram channel at t.me/Maaarpay_official and a Reddit community at r/maaarpay. Languages and opening hours are not stated.

What to take instead

If MaaarPay’s silence on fees is what stops you, the honest comparison is with the three cards I scored alongside it.

Three things fall out of that table. First, disclosure is the differentiator: OkiCard publishes a load fee and a transaction fee even where its own pages contradict each other about issuance, and TakeCard publishes a flat 1% commission. MaaarPay publishes two percentage caps and nothing about conversion. Second, breadth is not in dispute — every one of these claims 150 or 200 countries and none of them publishes a list. Third, TakeCard’s cost structure is the clearest of the group if you can use a virtual card: a one-off USD 5 and 1% per purchase, with USD payments at 1:1 and no currency adjustment.

On top-up depth, MaaarPay and OkiCard are the strongest here. MaaarPay takes USDT, USDC and other supported crypto with BTC listed, holding collateral on Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism and Arbitrum. OkiCard takes USDT on BSC (BEP-20), Ethereum (ERC-20), Tron (TRC-20) and Solana (SPL), with USDC “soon” and BTC and altcoins “coming soon”; deposits go to a generated address and convert at the moment of spending. Cardex takes USDT, USDC and BTC wallets with networks not stated. TakeCard’s funding is described in its own help centre as topping up from the Takenos balance, with no coins named in the article I read.

Where OkiCard beats MaaarPay is the ATM-adjacent reality of stablecoins on popular chains, and where MaaarPay wins is stated breadth of accepted crypto plus a named, licensed issuer structure with a second bank named for Nigerian users.

None of these cards is a bank. In the EU an electronic money institution may issue e-money, cards and wallets but cannot lend, and must safeguard customer funds in segregated accounts or by insurance — such funds are not bank deposits and are not covered by deposit guarantee schemes. Under MiCA, the crypto side and the card side are regulated separately, so a crypto card often rests on two licences. You can check a provider on ESMA’s interim register of authorised crypto-asset service providers.

Who I would recommend it to

If your money is already in USDT or USDC, you need a working Visa number before the end of the week, you do not need cash from ATMs, and you are the kind of person who reads terms rather than headlines, then MaaarPay is a reasonable choice. The 150+ country reach, the instant digital card, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and a freeze button in the app add up to a card that solves the actual problem.

If you need a physical card, need to withdraw cash, want to know exactly what one purchase costs, or live somewhere the card might be refused, then this is not the card for you — and the alternatives above may serve you better, at least on transparency.

Before you commit anything, do three things. Find the crypto conversion fee in writing. Check the deposit network in the “Deposit crypto” help article before you transfer. And keep your balance small until you have made one refundable purchase and one dispute you know works.

Frequently asked questions

What is the MaaarPay card?

MaaarPay is a Visa payment card funded from a crypto wallet rather than a bank account. You load USDT, USDC or another supported crypto, and the card converts what you spend at the till. It is a digital card issued instantly in the app; the physical version is marked “Coming soon”. Cards are issued by third-party licensed institutions, and the brand itself describes itself as a technology service provider, not a bank.

Is MaaarPay a bank?

No. The company is MAAAR PAY FZCO in the DMCC free zone in Dubai, Licence No. DMCC-981512, and it states that it “does not provide banking or money transmission services”. The issuing institution is named as Third National under a Visa licence, with BANEX MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED named for Nigerian users. So your balance sits with a licensed issuer, not with a deposit-taking bank.

Who can get the MaaarPay card?

The card says it is available in 150+ countries, but no country list is published. The terms require you to attest that you are “not a United States citizen” and refer to OFAC sanctions; whether the test is citizenship or residence is not stated. Age requirements and identity documents are also not stated on the pages I read.

How much does the MaaarPay card cost?

Two percentage fees are published: a foreign exchange fee of up to 2% on non-USD transactions, and a Cross Border Fee of up to 3%. Late payment is up to $40 and a returned payment up to $29, though one section of the terms says $00.00. Issuance, monthly and ATM fees are not stated, and the crypto conversion fee is not stated — which is the number you most need.

How do I top up the MaaarPay card?

You load the wallet with USDT, USDC or another supported crypto, with BTC also listed on the home page, and card collateral is held in stablecoins on Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism and Arbitrum. Deposit instructions are in the help-centre article “Deposit crypto”. Confirm the network before sending: blockchain transfers are irreversible and network fees are charged by the chain, not the card.

Is the MaaarPay card safe to use?

It carries ordinary risks plus category risks: the crypto conversion fee is undisclosed, the issuer may suspend or cancel the account “with or without cause”, stablecoins can lose their peg, and Visa can wind a programme down as it did with FTX in November 2022. No complaints about the card are published. Treat the balance as money you could lose and keep it small at first.

Can I use the MaaarPay card in Apple Pay and Google Pay?

Yes — the digital card is compatible with both mobile wallets, which is usually the most convenient way to use it. Apple Pay stores a device-specific number in the Secure Element rather than on Apple servers, with a one-time code per payment. The issuer can also restrict a tokenised card number to certain channels, so a card that works in a phone may fail elsewhere.

Why is the MaaarPay physical card not available?

The physical card is marked “Coming soon”, alongside ATM withdrawals. The terms add that cash advances and balance transfers are not available, even though the FAQ talks about using ATMs — so for now, treat MaaarPay as a digital card for online and contactless spending only, and check back if cash matters to you.

Is MaaarPay better than OkiCard or Cardex?

On disclosure, no. OkiCard publishes a 3% load fee and 0% USD transaction fee, and TakeCard publishes a flat 1% commission and a USD 5 virtual card, while MaaarPay publishes two percentage caps and leaves the crypto conversion fee unstated. MaaarPay does state broader accepted crypto and names a licensed issuer — the comparison is between transparency and breadth.

How do I withdraw money from MaaarPay?

The wallet supports withdrawing crypto to an external wallet, with a linked help article whose fees were not stated in what I read. Cash advances are not available under the terms and ATM withdrawals are listed as coming soon, so a withdrawal means moving crypto back out of the wallet rather than taking cash out of the card. Read the withdrawal fees before you load.

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