The virtual card is easy to get; the trust is harder

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

Brighty is one of those products that solves a real problem badly enough to be useful and badly enough to be risky. On paper it is a crypto wallet, a euro IBAN and a payment card in one app, sold to people who cannot easily open an ordinary bank account. In practice the card is virtual, the issuing bank is not named on the pages you can read, the app store shows a near-perfect rating from nine people, and the reviews that have accumulated elsewhere are considerably cooler. My score: 5.6 out of 10.

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

The score, and who this suits

Brighty gets 5.6 out of 10. That is not a rounded, generous number: it is the middle of the road, and it reflects a product with one genuinely strong feature and several unresolved questions.

Who this suits: residents of the EEA who want a crypto balance and a euro IBAN in the same app, and who are comfortable treating the card as a convenience rather than as their main payment method. The free incoming crypto transfers and the free monthly card servicing are real advantages if you move money on-chain regularly.

Who it does not suit: anyone who needs a physical card in the post, anyone whose income is paid in cash, anyone in a hurry at a supermarket checkout, and anyone for whom a frozen account would be a crisis rather than an inconvenience. The complaints pattern is exactly about accounts closed without explanation, and if your situation is fragile, that pattern is the one you care about.

Will they give you the card?

The answer is: probably, if you live in the right place and hold the right passport, and there is a nationality rule you need to read carefully.

The NPC card page is labelled “EEA only”. The app has since been extended to Montenegro and Andorra, and the same page qualifies that availability “may vary by jurisdiction”. So the headline rule is residence plus a jurisdiction check, not a simple country list. The official text puts it this way: “Due to regulatory restrictions, we are unable to onboard Russian nationals residing in Montenegro and Andorra.” In other words, in those two countries the gate is applied to nationality, not just to where you live. I did not find a full country list on the pages the card publishes.

An unofficial source, a third-party comparison site, lists 36 countries including the EU, the EEA, Switzerland, Montenegro, Andorra, San Marino, Monaco and Moldova, as of August 2026. The card’s own pages do not confirm that list, so treat the number and the country names as a pointer rather than as a promise.

One thing worth understanding about why the geography is so specific: every card number starts with an issuer identification number of 6 or 8 digits that identifies the issuing institution, and merchants can look it up. If the issuer country differs from your billing address, a shop may apply extra scrutiny. That is the mechanism behind most “it worked abroad but got declined here” stories with crypto cards, and it is also why providers restrict themselves to regions where they can be reasonably sure the card will behave. It is not arbitrary caution; it is the rails.

How to get it

Verification runs inside the app at sign-up. The help centre names Sumsub as the verification provider, but it does not define the different verification levels, and it does not say how long a review takes. If something fails, the stated fallback is email to [email protected].

What they will ask for, in their own terms:

• Proof of identity: a clear photo, your full name, date of birth, place of birth and citizenship.
• 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 showing your address.

They also publish the reasons a submission gets bounced, which is more than most providers do: documents that are ambiguous, unclear, contradictory or incomplete; an address that does not match the address you signed up with; old or damaged documents; and blank fields, including a missing signature.

About the card itself: the NPC page describes a virtual card, usable wherever Visa is accepted. The help articles refer to three things — a physical Visa, a virtual Visa with no PIN, and a virtual Mastercard. Card currency is not stated. What the app lets you pick between, Virtual Card or Physical Card, is stated; how long delivery takes, where it ships, and what it costs are not, and neither is the cost of a replacement.

There is one gap here that I would want answered before I relied on this card, and it is worth being blunt about: the help centre has articles on the source-of-funds and source-of-wealth process and on additional information requests, but their contents are not something I could confirm. That is normal for any regulated onboarding, and it is also the part of the process where accounts most often get held up.

One unofficial note, from the same third-party comparison site as before: physical Mastercard orders are currently unavailable, with the help centre saying they “will not be fulfilled”. No cost or timeframe is published there, and the replacement price is not published either. Unofficial reports also point to UAB Monavate as the Mastercard issuer, and to euro, dollar, pound, dirham and a list of crypto balances. None of that is confirmed on the card’s own pages.

Fees: what it really costs

Two or three numbers decide whether this is cheap, and they are both on the good side. Everything else depends on which plan you are on, and the plan prices are where the confusion starts.

The limits are the striking part of this table. Fifty thousand euros a day on the free plan is generous for a card most people cannot even order in physical form, and it says something about who the product is designed for.

Now three everyday payments, and which fees actually touch them.

A coffee in your own country. You convert crypto to fiat in the app and spend the balance. On the free One plan that exchange is 0.6% once you are past the allowance — and on One the allowance is zero, so from the first euro. There is no fee for spending the resulting balance. This is the ordinary case, and it is where the plan choice matters most.

A hotel abroad, in dollars, on One. You convert, you spend. The exchange fee is 0.6% and the free allowance is nil, and on top of that the card’s own pages do not state a fee for paying in a foreign currency. That gap is the one to press on. If the answer is “the exchange fee covers it”, fine; if there is a second line, the hotel is where you find out.

Sending money out to another euro account on Plus. EUR 0.5 plus 0.3%, minimum EUR 10, versus EUR 3 plus 0.3% on One. That difference is exactly the reason a paid plan exists, and it is also the reason Plus and Pro are worth considering for anyone moving money rather than spending it.

The ATM line is the one I would not plan around. The card page claims acceptance at ATMs worldwide but publishes no fee and no allowance, and a third-party site reports no dependable current ATM feature for the Mastercard while quoting legacy Visa rates: Plus EUR 3.50 in the EEA and EUR 3.50 plus 3.5% outside, Pro EUR 3 in the EEA and EUR 3 plus 3% outside. Those figures are unofficial and unconfirmed by the card. There is also a practical catch if you ever do use one: a physical Visa has to be used at an ATM with a new PIN, after a PIN change, in order to activate.

On the plans themselves, the official help article dated 15/09/26 gives cards included as 1 / 2 / 3 for One / Plus / Pro and everything in the table above, but not the subscription prices or the metal card. Unofficial sources put One at free, Plus at EUR 9 a month and Pro at EUR 18 a month, and list card limits of EUR 15,000 / 25,000 / 50,000 — which contradicts the official EUR 50,000 / 75,000 / 100,000. Where a third-party figure contradicts the card’s own help centre, believe the help centre.

Top up: how money gets in

This is the strongest part of the product, and the reason the score there is a 7.

You hold crypto such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDC in the app, with the NPC token featured, and you have a euro IBAN alongside it. Outgoing crypto goes out on Ethereum, Tron, Bitcoin, Cardano, Tezos, Islamic Coin, TON, Arbitrum, Solana, Polygon and BEP20. Incoming crypto is free on every plan, with no monthly limit. That is unusual and it is the feature I would actually build a routine around.

Incoming fiat is where it gets ordinary: SEPA 0.3% with a EUR 10 minimum, Faster Payments 0.3% with a EUR 10 minimum, SWIFT 0.7% with a EUR 50 minimum, and an incoming fiat limit of EUR 100,000 per month. The card top-up fee and the minimum top-up are not stated.

Withdrawing crypto out costs the same on all plans, with no monthly limit: 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.

One thing to understand before your first transfer: on-chain network fees for your deposit are charged by the blockchain, not by the card provider, and they are separate from everything in the table above. And transfers are irreversible. A deposit sent on a network the provider does not support, or to an address belonging to a different network, can be lost or need manual support recovery with no guarantee. Circle stopped supporting USDC on Tron in February 2024, which is a good illustration of how “USDC on TRC20” can stop being a native option while the network is still named in a fee list.

Finally, closing: on a closure you initiate, the account is “scheduled for permanent deletion within 30 days”. What happens to any balance left at that point is not stated. If you are closing, empty the account first and get confirmation.

Paying with it every day

The daily reality is: a virtual card, one wallet app, and a set of mobile wallets that work.

Apple Pay and Google Pay are both mentioned on the Montenegro and Andorra blog post. The current position, in a help article dated 26 May 2026, is that Apple Pay is unavailable for Mastercard cards because of technical updates, while it is available for Visa; Google Pay works with Mastercard. Since the fees article describes the card as a virtual Mastercard, read that as: Google Pay yes, Apple Pay no, until something changes. Blocked merchant categories are not stated, which is another gap worth asking about if any of your spending falls into the usual restricted categories.

The rewards line is thin. The card page says “Keep earning on your crypto while using it” and nothing more — no rate, no payout, no description of cashback. Unofficial sources describe 0.5% base cashback in USDC on all tiers, 1.25% to 1.75% in selected categories, monthly caps of 20 / 60 / 100 USDC on One / Plus / Pro, paid the next month to a Reward Box. That is not confirmed by the card, and I would plan as though there is no cashback until I have seen it.

The app itself: on the Turkish storefront as read on 2026-10-20, “Brighty: Crypto Card & IBAN” carries 4.9 from 9 ratings. Nine ratings is nine ratings, and it tells you almost nothing about reliability; the Google Play rating was not found. The company also raised USD 10M in December 2024, per Tech.eu, which tells you there is funding behind it and not what you want to know.

You can freeze the card or terminate it in the app. Freeze is temporary. Termination cannot be reversed.

What can go wrong

The most important risk here is not a fee. It is that the people who hold your money are not named.

Brighty states plainly that it “is a financial technology company, not a bank”. Accounts, cards, custody and the on/off ramp all run through licensed partners — but those partners are unnamed on the pages I read, and no licence numbers appear there. Press coverage from 2024 describes Brighty as based in Switzerland and holding crypto-exchange and digital-asset custodian licences; that comes from a StreetInsider press release of September 2024 and is not confirmed on the card’s official pages. Third-party sources name UAB Monavate as the Mastercard issuer, which is unofficial.

Your funds are custodial, not self-custodial. 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 was not mentioned on the page I read. Segregated means held apart and specially secured; it is not a bank deposit, and whether a deposit guarantee scheme covers it is a different question.

Then the reviews. Trustpilot shows 3.2 out of 5 from 78 reviews on the Dutch-Belgian page as read on 2026-10-20, with review dates not visible. Three themes repeat: accounts closed without explanation, with the company citing policy or regulation; referral bonuses unpaid, with the company citing suspected referral abuse; and instant transfers taking hours. Some reviewers praise the cashback. No card-specific complaints and nothing on Reddit surfaced.

The official list of reasons for offboarding tells you what the risk actually is: suspected fraud, unclear source of funds, partner-provider concerns, and PEP or sanctions status. That last one deserves a pause if you are a politically exposed person, because it is a category you cannot change by sending better documents.

Disputes and chargebacks are a hole. There is a “Refund Policy for Unsupported Crypto Deposits” article and a “Wrong Network and Unsupported Cryptocurrency” article — meaning the provider has thought hard about deposits going wrong — but no card dispute or chargeback article was seen. An unofficial source says there is no dispute or chargeback process described, and that cashback can be reversed if a purchase is refunded or charged back. Chargebacks are a real consumer right elsewhere in the card world, with reason codes for fraud, duplicate billing or goods not received; here, the picture is that you should assume less protection, not more.

Support is email only on what I can see: [email protected] and a help centre at help.brighty.app. No phone number, no live chat, no opening hours in the FAQ I read. The help centre has a language selector for English, French, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian and Spanish — Russian is not among them, and the languages support staff actually speak are not stated. For a product aimed at people the regular banks turn away, an email-only support desk is worth weighing.

The category context explains why these risks are not hypothetical. Custodial platforms have a documented history of failure: Mt. Gox at about US$350 million reported stolen between 2011 and 2014, Coincheck at about US$400 million in 2018, Ronin Network at US$625 million in 2022. Card programmes themselves get switched off — WaveCrest, a Visa issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing all WaveCrest-issued Visa programmes, and Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX on 13 November 2022. Neither Visa nor Mastercard issues crypto cards to consumers directly; they license issuers, and they can suspend a programme. A 2026 closure reported by a single secondary source had new loads ending 8 July 2026 and spending stopping 8 August 2026 — unconfirmed, but the shape of it is what a closure looks like.

One more general caution. A declined authorisation can leave a hold on your funds for several days, typically up to seven. And merchants can decline prepaid or foreign-issued cards outright, because the BIN lookup reveals the card type and issuer country. Address verification, which compares the numeric parts of the billing address the buyer typed against issuer records, is generally unavailable for foreign-issued cards and can cause declines of its own.

What to take instead

Brighty is not alone, and the alternatives are worth holding next to it. Here is how the field looks.

Stella scores highest here at 6.5, and the differences are structural rather than cosmetic. It offers both virtual and physical VISA cards, working at what it calls over 40 million VISA merchants globally. Its terms bar users under economic sanctions programmes and route US and European users through affiliates. You deposit crypto into a custodial in-app wallet, which automatically tops up the card. Its terms do not state the countries it serves. Its card page states no cashback — the Earn product is separate and is about yield, not spending.

Whop Cards is the US option, and it is a genuinely different proposition: it spends from a Whop balance, where a pending balance becomes usable as soon as a payment arrives, and standard withdrawals use settled funds. The starting data is backed by stablecoin collateral from a linked wallet; the coins and networks are not stated. It offers 5% cashback at select merchants, currently Uber, with more planned and no stated payout currency or conditions. Coverage is specific: 31 states for consumers — Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming — and 41 for businesses. It does not serve consumers in Belarus, China (Mainland), Cuba, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela or Vietnam.

UniFi Card is the prepaid-debit option: a Prepaid Debit Visa Card issued by Lead Bank, spending from a USD balance, with Apple Pay support. You receive funds via ACH, wire, SEPA (IBAN) or SPEI (CLABE), and you can get paid to a USDC wallet. Coins and networks beyond USDC are not stated on the listing. A listing claims “3% rewards on balances” — on balances, not on card spend; card cashback is not stated.

The pattern across all four: not one of them states its fees clearly on the card page. This is a category where the pricing page is the last thing anyone bothers with, and where the number you care about is the one they leave out.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend Brighty to someone already inside the EEA who keeps a working crypto balance and who wants a euro IBAN and a spend card attached to it without moving funds twice. The free incoming crypto transfers, the free monthly card servicing and the EUR 2.99 virtual issue make the everyday cost genuinely low, and the Google Pay support means it works in more shops than a virtual card number alone would.

I would not recommend it as a primary card, because a virtual card is not a primary card. I would not recommend it if account closure without explanation would hurt you, because that is the most common serious complaint on record. I would not recommend it if you need cash from an ATM, because the fee and the availability are both unpublished. And I would not recommend it if you are a politically exposed person or unsure about the source of your funds, because those are named offboarding reasons rather than hypothetical ones.

If you are in the EEA, want the crypto-plus-IBAN combination, and treat this as one card among several, the answer is yes. If you are looking for reassurance, look elsewhere — this is not the product that offers it.

Frequently asked questions

What is Brighty?

Brighty is a financial technology company, not a bank, offering a crypto wallet, a euro IBAN and a payment card inside one app. You hold crypto such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or USDC, convert it to spend, or use the IBAN like an ordinary euro account. Its own FAQ says user funds sit in segregated accounts that are specially secured, for both fiat and crypto.

How does the Brighty card work?

You convert crypto into a spendable balance in the app, and the card draws on that balance like a prepaid card. Card payments route through the network — Visa or Mastercard — while Brighty and its unnamed partners hold the account and custody. Because the balance is pre-loaded, the card cannot overdraw.

Is Brighty a bank?

No. Brighty describes itself as “a financial technology company, not a bank”, and it runs accounts, cards, custody and the on/off ramp through licensed partners that are not named on the pages the company publishes. Segregated accounts are not the same as a bank deposit, so deposit guarantee schemes should not be assumed.

Is the Brighty card available in my country?

The card page is labelled “EEA only”, and the app has been extended to Montenegro and Andorra, where availability “may vary by jurisdiction”. Russian nationals residing in those two countries cannot be onboarded due to regulatory restrictions. A third-party site lists 36 countries, but the card does not confirm that list.

How do I get the Brighty card?

Verification happens in the app at sign-up. You submit a clear photo, 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, an official registration confirmation, or a second ID showing your address.

Does Brighty require KYC?

Yes, and in a fairly standard way. EU due diligence covers identity documents, a sanctions check, the purpose of the relationship and whether you are a politically exposed person — which is why suspected fraud, unclear source of funds and PEP status are listed as official offboarding reasons. The specific verification levels are not defined on the pages I read.

What does the Brighty card cost?

Issuing the virtual card costs EUR 2.99 on all plans, monthly card servicing is free, and balance inquiry is free. In-app exchange is 0.6% on One, 0.5% on Plus and 0.4% on Pro above the free monthly allowance, which is EUR 0, EUR 2,000 and EUR 5,000 respectively. A fee for paying in a foreign currency is not stated.

Can I use the Brighty card in Apple Wallet?

Not on the Mastercard. A help article dated 26 May 2026 says Apple Pay is currently unavailable for Mastercard cards because of technical updates, while remaining available for Visa. Google Pay works with Mastercard. If Apple Pay is your main tap-to-pay route, this is the detail to check before you rely on the card.

How safe is Brighty?

Custodial, which is the honest answer: Brighty holds the credentials and the funds, so you are trusting a company whose issuing partners and licence numbers are not published on the pages I read. No insurance is mentioned. Trustpilot shows 3.2/5 from 78 reviews, with recurring complaints about accounts closed without explanation.

How do I close my Brighty account and get my money out?

On a closure you initiate, the account is “scheduled for permanent deletion within 30 days”, and what happens to a remaining balance is not stated. Move your balance out first and keep the confirmation. Outgoing SEPA costs EUR 3 plus 0.3% on One and EUR 0.5 plus 0.3% on Plus and Pro, with a EUR 10 minimum.

Content created by the «cryptocardselect» team