Visa shut down bitcoin debit cards

[mr-dead]

Visa has shut down all bitcoin visa debt cards with no notification.

http://mailchi.mp/bitpay/wave-crest-card-closure

Who thought the banks were not going to fight back against bitcoin.

[Bumble]

From what I understand, this happened because the card issuer, WaveCrest, broke Visa's rules and so Visa ordered them to withdraw all their cards. Unfortunately for Bitpay, their non-US customer cards are issued by WaveCrest, so this hit them. They will have to find another card provider. Bitpay in the USA was unaffected.

[Martlet]

It was clear when this story emerged it was the provider, not Bitcoin, that was the target.  

I don't believe Visa (or Mastercard) see Bitcoin as a threat.  They make money from payment processing, £, $, BTC makes little difference to them, they still take their fees.  I'm increasingly of the opinion that banks and authorities, in the West at least, do not see cryptocurrency as the threat that people in the bubble want them to be.  We can deposit with ease, withdraw (though with problems in UK for some reason) and tax is covered in existing rules (though with questions from lack of test cases).  Primary business and source of revenue for banks comes from loans, overdrafts and mortgages, not transfer fees (which are 0 in UK and EU anyway), so why would they see crypto as any threat?  

[MancunianStacker]

45 minutes ago, Martlet said:

It was clear when this story emerged it was the provider, not Bitcoin, that was the target.  

I don't believe Visa (or Mastercard) see Bitcoin as a threat.  They make money from payment processing, £, $, BTC makes little difference to them, they still take their fees.  I'm increasingly of the opinion that banks and authorities, in the West at least, do not see cryptocurrency as the threat that people in the bubble want them to be.  We can deposit with ease, withdraw (though with problems in UK for some reason) and tax is covered in existing rules (though with questions from lack of test cases).  Primary business and source of revenue for banks comes from loans, overdrafts and mortgages, not transfer fees (which are 0 in UK and EU anyway), so why would they see crypto as any threat?  

When the BOE state they are looking into starting their own crypto and allow people to avoid retail banks completely it looks like they want in on it. I can see Visa and MasterCard launching their own very soon too.

We live in interesting times.