After recent expansions into Brazil and Argentina, Binance announced on March 10th that its crypto debit card is available in Colombia. The latest of Binance’s forays into Latin America was made in partnership with Mastercard and the card itself is issued by Movii.
Binance Brings its Crypto Card to Colombia
This Friday, Binance revealed that it is bringing its crypto prepaid card to Colombia. The card will be issued by Movii, and usable everywhere Mastercard is accepted. Users in Colombia will be able to make payments with many different cryptocurrencies including some stablecoins and BNB, BTC, ETH, ADA, DOT, SOL, SHIB, XRP, MATIC, and LINK.
As with similar launches, Binance expressed their hopes the card will help bridge the gap between TradFi and DeFi and lead to increased digital asset adoption. Just two months earlier, in January, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange brought its debit card to Brazil. Over the previous months, Binance has been actively pursuing expansion into South America and also launched a similar product in Argentina last summer.
The exchange’s efforts are not surprising considering that Latin America is proving to be a very dynamic digital assets hub. While perhaps the most famous example of the trend is El Salvador’s 2020 decision to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender, other nations in the region have moved in a decidedly more crypto-friendly direction. Argentina, for example, started allowing the residents of its important wine-making region to pay taxes in cryptocurrencies in August 2022.
Visa and Mastercard Undeterred by Crypto Setbacks
The long list of calamities and bankruptcies that rocked the cryptocurrency industry starting with the fall of LUNA and leading to, most recently, the liquidation of Silvergate, led many to nervously eye the growing relationship between Visa and Mastercard, and the digital assets sector. Indeed, the uncertainty recently lead to reports that both companies have reached the decision to freeze their ties with blockchain companies while they wait for the end of the “crypto winter”.
The reports were, however, both denied by Visa and proven untrue by the recent actions of the payment giants. Earlier this month, Mastercard partnered with Bitso, a major cryptocurrency exchange from Mexico, to launch a cryptocurrency debit card in the country. Additionally, the partnership between the payment giant and Immersve led to the launch of a similar product offered to users in New Zealand and Australia.
Both Visa and Mastercard have also been active when it comes to institutional cryptocurrency and blockchain adoption. Mastercard, for example, announced the launch of a tool aimed at helping banks detect digital assets-related crime in October and revealed it would help banking institutions offer cryptocurrencies to their clients.
This article originally appeared on The Tokenist
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