Blade Financial to offer debit cards to Bitcoin businesses

Via Blade Financial’s release, digital currency companies can offer their customers Bitcoin payments at merchants worldwide. Despite support from major retailers like Dell, DISH Network and Overstock.com, Bitcoins annual transaction volume represented less than 1% of the USD 7.4 trillion in purchases processed through Visa and MasterCard in 2013.

Currently, 80% of people own debit cards which help consumers make purchases and remain the number one form of payment over cash or credit. Every bank outsources its card program.

The Blade engine integrates digital currency companies with banks via a REST API to deploy white label and co-branded debit cards that work over existing global payment networks. Blade transactions are instant. The digital currency is debited in real-time at the point of authorisation and no pre-funding of fiat is required.