Prepaid Debit Card

Prepaid card could be a link between today's analog world and digital payment future that we all strive for.

Software Engineer currently working for card issuer company.

www.linkedin.com/in/gregles

This proposal is aiming for a non-custodial prepaid card. Noncustodial means that the user has complete ownership and responsibility for their money. Removing middleman such as bank or institution between card and your Cardano funds.

Early design choices:

• Prepaid card; So that it is non-custodial by design

• Visa network; As the most popular card company in 123 countries [1].

• Virtual card with support of Apple Pay & Google Pay

Becoming card issuer is not an easy task.

To issue any payment devices (virtual prepaid card) one will need to have a Visa license to issue or work with a partner who does. In addition, to process the transactions, it is necessary to work with a processor. Applying for a Visa license requires a regulatory license. Whereas, with a partner, one doesn't need this in place.

Partnering cost is estimated as following: Initial setup fee $42,000 + $7,000 per month. To process card payments BIN sponsorship is necessary.

* Path to end goal is long and complicated and will require more than one round of investing. *

Having said that, here are some successful existing projects working on Ethereum network:

Monolith was funded by an initial coin offering (ICO) of TKN tokens that raised $16.9 million from retail investors in May 2017 [2].

Crypto.com - MCO has been available since 2017, following Crypto.com's $26.7 million ICO [3].

HOW DOES IT ALL WORK?

Mary lives in the United Kingdom and would like to deposit some of her Ada on a prepaid card. She decided to spend £950 worth of Ada. In the UK, annual standard Personal Allowance on capital gains is £12,570, which is much higher than Mary is planning to sell. That means she will pay no tax for the transaction. After sending £950 worth of Ada to her mobile wallet, using top up function on the app, two things are happening. Number one £950 worth of Ada are sold and deducted from the original address. Number two, the card is topped up with £950. From now on, Mary can use prepaid card as any other card.

PLAN OF ACTION

Since the running cost is so high, it is important to identify whenever there is a market fit for this sort of product.

Suggested approach is to build an MVP mobile wallet with three functions: Import Account, Send & Receive funds.

Measuring different metrics such as app downloads, interest in social media, subscribing on mailing list, will help to gauge the interest on the topic.

Number of users would be a good indicator whenever it is worth to bring the idea forward.

Budget:

$12000 Building MVP mobile app

$3000 UI designs and marketing materials

$3000 security audit

Time frame:

UX Designs: 1 month of preparation.

Building MVP: 3 months of dev work.

Audit: up to 1 month.

Estimated Launch: Mid September 2021.

[1] https://merchantmachine.co.uk/visa-mastercard-amex

[2] https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-startup-monolith-adds-dai-to-visa-debit-card

[3] https://cryptobriefing.com/what-is-monaco-introduction-crypto-com-mco-token