The crypto card that promises an IBAN in the app

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

If you have run into a banking problem — a declined application, a closed account, a country where opening an ordinary card is awkward — then a product like Brighty is interesting precisely because it sidesteps the bank. The pitch is a card number and an IBAN that live in an app, funded by crypto, with the paperwork done inside the phone instead of at a branch. That promise is real, and parts of the product are genuinely well built. It is also a product where the small print matters more than usual, and where the reviews on Trustpilot tell you something the marketing does not.

Here is what I found when I read through the card’s own pages, its help centre and its fee tables, and then read the complaints.

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

Verdict: 5.6 out of 10

Brighty scores 5.6 / 10 overall. That is a middling score for a product with a genuinely good idea and a weak evidentiary trail underneath it.

Who this suits: EEA residents who want a crypto IBAN and a virtual card, who are comfortable holding their funds with a fintech rather than a bank, and who can live without Apple Pay. Who it does not suit: anyone who needs a physical card today, anyone who banks in Apple Pay only, anyone who wants to know exactly which licensed institution is holding their money, and anyone who would be devastated by an account closure without a conversation first.

The single most important thing to understand is what Brighty is. It is “a financial technology company, not a bank”. Your account, your card, custody of your money and the conversion on and off the crypto rails all sit with unnamed licensed partners. No licence numbers appear on the pages I read. That is not automatically a problem — most crypto cards work this way — but it means when something goes wrong, you are dealing with a fintech’s support desk rather than a bank with a regulator’s ombudsman on the letterhead.

Who will they actually give the card to?

The card page carries the label “EEA only”. The app has since been extended to Montenegro and Andorra, and the availability note says it “may vary by jurisdiction”. There is an explicit nationality restriction too: “Due to regulatory restrictions, we are unable to onboard Russian nationals residing in Montenegro and Andorra.” A full country list was not found on the pages I read.

So the rule works on two axes. Residence is the main one — you need to be in the EEA, or in Montenegro or Andorra. Nationality is a second one, but only in a narrow case. Unofficially, 36 countries are listed as supported, including the EU, the EEA, Switzerland, Montenegro, Andorra, San Marino, Monaco and Moldova; that list comes from a third-party card comparison site, not from Brighty, and the card has not confirmed it.

If you are reading this outside Europe, that is probably the end of the line and nothing later in this review will change it.

Signing up

Verification happens in the app, at sign-up. One help article names Sumsub as the verification provider, which tells you the mechanism but not the tiers — the levels themselves are not defined publicly, and processing time is not stated. If something fails, the fallback is email to [email protected].

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

The rejection reasons are worth reading before you photograph anything, because most of them are avoidable. Documents can be refused as ambiguous, unclear, contradictory or incomplete. An address that does not match the address you signed up with is grounds for refusal. Old or damaged documents are refused. Blank fields are refused, and that includes an empty signature line.

On the card itself: the card page shows a virtual card, usable wherever Visa is accepted, while a help article references a physical Visa, a virtual Visa with no PIN, and a virtual Mastercard. The currency the card holds is not stated. A card issuance article says a Virtual Card or a Physical Card can be chosen in the app, but gives no countries, no timeframe and no cost for delivery; the price of a replacement is not stated either. Unofficially, physical Mastercard orders are currently unavailable and the help centre says they “will not be fulfilled” — which, if you were planning around a card arriving in the post, is the most practical thing on this page.

Fees: what it really costs to use Brighty

The headline numbers are friendly. Issuing the virtual card costs EUR 2.99 on all plans, the monthly card service fee is free, balance inquiry is free, and you can issue up to 10 cards a month. The charges appear elsewhere, and that is where a Brighty payment actually costs money.

Three everyday payments, so you can see where the money goes.

A coffee bought with the virtual Mastercard, in your own currency. The card is a Virtual Mastercard, and no fee is published for paying in a foreign currency or for the purchase itself, so the everyday case is the clean one. The conversion in the app is the thing to watch: on the free One plan there is no free allowance at all, so every exchange costs 0.6%.

A holiday purchase in a currency you do not hold. You will be spending from a balance, and any exchange inside the app above your plan’s free monthly allowance is charged at 0.6%, 0.5% or 0.4%. On One that is every time. Plus gives EUR 2,000 a month free, Pro EUR 5,000. The fee specifically for paying in a foreign currency is not stated, and the help centre lists supported fiat and crypto currencies separately in articles I did not read — so if you plan to live or travel outside the eurozone, that is a question to ask support before you rely on it.

Sending money out to another person’s account. Here the plans separate sharply. On One, a SEPA or Faster Payments transfer costs EUR 3 plus 0.3%, minimum EUR 10. On Plus and Pro the same transfer is EUR 0.5 plus 0.3%. SWIFT costs 0.9% with a EUR 50 minimum, or EUR 30 on Pro. If you live in the euro area and rarely send money, One is probably enough; if you send money as part of your life, the higher plan buys a meaningful reduction.

Two things are worth flagging about the tiers. The subscription prices are not stated on the plan page I read; unofficially, One is free, Plus is EUR 9 a month and Pro is EUR 18 a month. And there is a real contradiction in the card limits: the official page gives daily and monthly purchase limits of EUR 50,000 / 75,000 / 100,000, while the unofficial source gives EUR 15,000 / 25,000 / 50,000. I would trust the official figures and check them in-app, but you should know the gap exists. A metal card price is also not stated on that page.

On ATMs the card page claims acceptance worldwide but publishes neither a fee nor an allowance, and the help article notes that a physical Visa must be used at an ATM with a new PIN after a PIN change in order to activate. Unofficially, there is no dependable current ATM feature for the Mastercard, and legacy Visa rates are quoted at Plus EUR 3.50 in the EEA and EUR 3.50 plus 3.5% outside it, Pro EUR 3 in the EEA and EUR 3 plus 3% outside. Treat ATM use as something to verify rather than assume.

Top up: getting money and crypto onto the card

Funding is the part Brighty does best. Incoming crypto — Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC among them — is free on all plans with no monthly limit. There is an IBAN account alongside it, and the app converts between crypto and fiat internally.

Coming in by bank transfer is not free. An incoming SEPA transfer costs 0.3% with a EUR 10 minimum, Faster Payments 0.3% with a EUR 10 minimum, and 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.

Outgoing crypto fees are the same on every plan and carry no monthly limit. Bitcoin at EUR 20 is the one that will make you look twice; everything else sits between EUR 1 and EUR 3. The networks supported for withdrawal are Ethereum, Tron, Bitcoin, Cardano, Tezos, Islamic Coin, TON, Arbitrum, Solana, Polygon and BEP20.

Two operational warnings. First, picking the wrong network is the single most expensive mistake available here: 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 recovery with no guarantee. The help centre has articles on wrong-network deposits and unsupported currencies, which tells you it happens. Second, on closing your account, the terms say it is “scheduled for permanent deletion within 30 days” — and what happens to any remaining balance is not stated. If you are thinking of closing, ask that question before you close, not after.

Paying with it every day

Day-to-day use is the weak middle of this product.

Apple Pay and Google Pay are both mentioned in connection with the Montenegro and Andorra announcement. A more recent help article, dated 26 May 2026, is explicit: Apple Pay is currently unavailable for Mastercard cards because of technical updates, and is available for Visa; Google Pay works with Mastercard. Since the card you get is described as a Virtual Mastercard on the fee page, the practical reading is that you add it to Google Wallet and not to Apple Wallet. Blocked merchant categories are not stated.

The rewards offer is thin in the official telling. The card page says “Keep earning on your crypto while using it” and stops there — no rate, no payout mechanics, and cashback is not described. Unofficially, it is 0.5% base cashback in USDC on all tiers, 1.25%–1.75% on selected categories, with monthly caps of 20 / 60 / 100 USDC on One / Plus / Pro, paid the following month to a “Reward Box”. That is a decent structure if true, and it is not something the card’s own pages confirm.

On the app itself: the App Store listing I saw on the Turkish storefront, on 20 October 2026, is “Brighty: Crypto Card & IBAN” with 4.9 from 9 ratings. Nine ratings is not a signal. The Google Play rating was not found.

There is also a category-wide point that will affect you whichever card you use. A merchant can look up the BIN — the first six or eight digits of your card number — and see which institution and which country issued it, and may apply extra scrutiny when that issuer country differs from your billing address. That is why a card issued in one country can look foreign to a shop in another, and why prepaid and foreign-issued cards get declined at some merchants and some payment pages. If Brighty ever declines where you expected it to work, this is often why.

What can go wrong

The Trustpilot picture is the most useful thing here. Brighty scores 3.2 out of 5 across 78 reviews on the Dutch-Belgian page I read; I did not see individual review dates. The recurring themes: 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 no Reddit threads surfaced.

Read that pattern carefully, because it is not the same as a fraud complaint. An account closed for a regulatory reason is a compliance system doing what compliance systems do — EU rules require an institution to stop and end a relationship when due diligence cannot be completed. What makes it damaging is the experience of it: no conversation, no explanation that satisfies. If your access depends on one provider’s discretion, that is the risk you are carrying.

The company structure is the other thing. “Brighty is a financial technology company, not a bank.” Accounts, cards, custody and the on and off ramps all run through unnamed licensed partners, and no licence numbers appear on the pages I read. Unofficially, 2024 press coverage describes Brighty as based in Switzerland and holding crypto-exchange and digital-asset custodian licences; Brighty’s own pages do not confirm this. Separately, on the issuer question: the issuing partners are not officially named at all, with UAB Monavate appearing unofficially.

On custody, the facts are clear and you should sit with them. Brighty holds the funds — this is not self-custody, so the private keys are not yours. The official FAQ says “Brighty keeps user funds in segregated accounts that are specially secured”, for both fiat and crypto. Segregated is meaningful: it means the money is ring-fenced from the company’s own balance sheet. It is not the same as a bank deposit, and it is not covered by a national deposit guarantee scheme. The page mentions working with penetration testers. No insurance is mentioned. Two-factor authentication is not mentioned on the page I read, though card freeze and terminate are both available in the app — freeze is temporary, and termination cannot be reversed.

The reason this matters is not abstract. Crypto custodians fail: Mt. Gox reported about US$350 million stolen between 2011 and 2014, Coincheck about US$400 million in 2018, and the Ronin Network US$625 million in 2022. A card that holds your money is a card with counterparty risk on top of everything else.

Support is email only as far as I can see: [email protected] and a help centre at help.brighty.app. No phone, no live chat, no published hours in the FAQ I read. The help centre’s 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. Worth knowing before you plan to write in your preferred language.

On disputes, the card is unusually quiet. The help centre has articles on refunds for unsupported crypto deposits and on wrong networks, but no card dispute or chargeback article appeared. Unofficially, no dispute or chargeback process is described, and cashback can be reversed if a purchase is refunded or charged back. If a purchase goes wrong, you are relying on a policy that is not written down where a normal bank would write it down. Offboarding reasons that the card does state include suspected fraud, unclear source of funds, partner-provider concerns, and PEP or sanctions status. One more piece of news for context: the Apple Pay and Google Pay help article is dated 26 May 2026, and in December 2024 Brighty raised USD 10M.

What to take instead

None of these are perfect either, and the point of the comparison is not that one of them is safe. It is that they fail differently.

International Visa Card scores highest of the four at 6.7. It is a U.S.-issued Platinum Visa, virtual, paying in USD, with a USD 5 one-time issuance and no maintenance fee; the physical card is listed as “coming soon”, which is the same kind of caveat Brighty has. Deposits of any kind are free, and you can fund with USDC or USDT into the USD account at 1:1, as well as USD, EUR, SEPA, SWIFT and FedNow. Its catch is a blunt one: 2% FX on foreign currency spending, and a country exclusion list covering Belarus, mainland China, North Korea, Cuba, India, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela and Vietnam, with purchases blocked in North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela. The rule is by residence or registration, not citizenship.

UNi Card at 6.1 is the multicurrency one, spending from a UNi.Global account balance on the Mastercard network, with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fee, converted at live over-the-counter rates and what it calls no hidden exchange fees. Rewards are “Spend-to-Earn” up to 3%. Its big gap is that eligibility and funding are both not stated, so you would be signing up without knowing whether you can.

Whop Cards at 5.2 is the narrowest. Visa, works anywhere Visa is accepted, spends from a Whop balance where a pending balance becomes usable as soon as a payment arrives. Five percent cashback at select merchants, currently Uber, with payout currency and conditions not stated. But consumers are limited to 31 US states and businesses to 41, and unsupported consumer countries include Belarus, China (Mainland), Cuba, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela and Vietnam. The basis of the rule — citizenship or residence — is not stated.

A general point that applies to all four: Visa and Mastercard do not issue crypto cards to consumers themselves. They license issuers, and they can suspend a programme. Visa said in November 2022 that it had “terminated our global agreements with FTX”, and the FTX US debit card programme was wound down. WaveCrest, a Visa issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing every WaveCrest-issued Visa programme. Closures follow a pattern: a notice period, then spending and loading stop, then users are asked to withdraw. So a card being live today is not a promise about next year. Under the EU’s MiCA rules, the transitional period for existing providers runs only until 1 July 2026 or until they are authorised or refused, whichever comes first — and ESMA keeps a public register of authorised crypto-asset service providers, white papers and non-compliant entities, which is worth a look before you commit money to anyone here.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend Brighty to someone who is an EEA resident, or in Montenegro or Andorra, who already holds crypto and wants to spend it without selling it first, who does not mind a virtual card in Google Wallet rather than Apple Wallet, and who has read the section above about custody and account closures and is comfortable with it. For that person the product is coherent: free incoming crypto, a real IBAN, EUR 2.99 to start, no monthly card fee, and withdrawal networks that cover the chains people actually use.

I would not recommend it to someone whose banking problem is recent and fragile. Trustpilot at 3.2 out of 5 with accounts closing without explanation is exactly the scenario where you can least afford a surprise. Nor to someone who needs a physical card in the post, since physical orders are reportedly not being fulfilled and no timeframe is published. Nor to anyone who banks exclusively through Apple Pay on a Mastercard.

Before you sign up, I would ask support three questions in writing and keep the answers: which licensed partner holds the funds and what are its licence numbers; what happens to a remaining balance if I close the account; and what is the fee for paying in a foreign currency. None of those are stated publicly, and an email answer gives you something to point at later.

And one thing to check on your own side, because it is not the card’s fault if it applies to you: if you are a US taxpayer, digital assets are treated as property, so exchanging them for goods or services generally produces a taxable gain or loss measured in local currency at the fair market value on the transaction date — which means each card payment funded from crypto can be its own disposal. I am not giving you tax advice; I am telling you to check with someone who does.

Frequently asked questions

What is Brighty card?

Brighty is a financial technology company, not a bank, offering a crypto-funded payment card with an IBAN account in the same app. You load crypto such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or USDC, convert it to fiat in the app, and spend from that balance. Accounts, cards, custody and the crypto on and off ramps all run through licensed partners whose names are not published on the pages I read.

How does the Brighty card work?

It behaves like a prepaid card. You convert or top up a fiat balance, the card spends only that balance, and it cannot overdraw. Card payments are routed through Visa or Mastercard, while Brighty and its partners run the account and the crypto side. The card is a virtual Mastercard and works wherever Visa is accepted, with Google Pay supported.

Is Brighty a bank, and who owns it?

No. Brighty describes itself as a financial technology company, not a bank, and says accounts, cards, custody and the conversion rails are provided by licensed partners. No licence numbers appear on the public pages I read. Press coverage from 2024 describes Brighty as Switzerland-based with crypto-exchange and digital-asset custodian licences, but that is unconfirmed by the card’s own pages.

Who can get the Brighty card, and can I use it in my country?

The card page is labelled “EEA only”, and the app has been extended to Montenegro and Andorra with availability that “may vary by jurisdiction”. Russian nationals residing in Montenegro and Andorra cannot be onboarded. A full country list is not published; unofficially 36 countries are listed, including Switzerland, San Marino, Monaco and Moldova. Check your own country with support before applying.

Does the Brighty card require KYC, and how long does approval take?

Yes. Verification runs in the app at sign-up, with Sumsub named as the provider, though the tiers are not defined publicly and processing time is not stated. You need a clear photo of your ID with name, date of birth, place of birth and citizenship, plus a utility bill or bank statement PDF from the last three months — screenshots are rejected — or a registration confirmation or a second ID showing your address.

Is the Brighty card free, and what does it really cost?

The virtual card costs EUR 2.99 to issue and there is no monthly card service fee. The charges are elsewhere: in-app currency exchange runs 0.6%, 0.5% or 0.4% above the free allowance on One, Plus or Pro, and outgoing SEPA or Faster Payments costs EUR 3 plus 0.3% on One. Plan prices for Plus and Pro are not stated on the plan page; unofficially EUR 9 and EUR 18 a month.

How do I top up the Brighty card, and what networks can I withdraw to?

Incoming crypto is free on all plans with no monthly limit, so Bitcoin, Ethereum or USDC cost nothing to deposit. Incoming SEPA and Faster Payments each cost 0.3% with a EUR 10 minimum, and SWIFT 0.7% with EUR 50. You can withdraw to Ethereum, Tron, Bitcoin, Cardano, Tezos, Islamic Coin, TON, Arbitrum, Solana, Polygon and BEP20, with fees from EUR 1 to EUR 20.

Can I add the Brighty card to Apple Wallet?

Probably not if you hold the Mastercard. A help article dated 26 May 2026 states that Apple Pay is currently unavailable for Mastercard cards because of technical updates, and available for Visa; Google Pay works with Mastercard. Since the fees page describes the card as a Virtual Mastercard, plan on Google Wallet instead of Apple Wallet.

Is the Brighty card safe, and where is my money held?

Brighty holds your funds rather than you holding your own keys, so this is custodial. The official FAQ says “Brighty keeps user funds in segregated accounts that are specially secured”, for fiat and crypto, which ring-fences them from the company’s own balance sheet but is not a bank deposit and carries no deposit guarantee. The page mentions penetration testing but no insurance. Freeze and terminate are both available in the app.

Is the Brighty card worth it, and what are people complaining about?

Worth it if you want to spend crypto directly with a real IBAN attached and can accept a virtual card in Google Wallet. On Trustpilot it scores 3.2 out of 5 across 78 reviews, with recurring complaints about accounts closed without explanation, unpaid referral bonuses, and instant transfers taking hours, alongside some praise for the cashback. Treat that as a genuine risk, not noise.

Content created by the «cryptocardcheck» team