Free to open, 0.99% per purchase, and crypto-only: the SwissBorg card in detail

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

The SwissBorg card is a virtual Mastercard that spends directly from crypto you already hold in the SwissBorg app. There is no issuance fee, no monthly fee, no annual fee, and no SwissBorg foreign-exchange fee — the price of every purchase is a 0.99% crypto-to-fiat conversion fee, plus the Mastercard exchange rate if you pay in something other than the card’s base currency. What you give up for that free card is cash: no ATM withdrawals, no physical plastic yet, and no spending from the fiat balance sitting in the same app. It is available to residents of the EEA, Switzerland and the UK, and it launched in a phased rollout in February 2026. My score for it is 6.2 out of 10 — genuinely good on cost, mediocre on reach, everyday use and reliability.

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

If you are reading this because an ordinary bank card is hard to get in your situation, the honest headline is that this card does something useful and unusual: it turns a crypto balance into a spendable Mastercard without asking you to hold fiat on the card. Whether that helps depends almost entirely on where you live, and there is one more thing you should know before you get excited — the accounts of people who say their funds got frozen. I will walk through both.

Verdict: 6.2 out of 10

Here is the score broken down by the criteria I used, with the numbers as I recorded them.

The card suits you if you live in the EEA, Switzerland or the UK, already hold or intend to hold crypto in the SwissBorg app, want a Mastercard number that spends that crypto instantly, and would rather pay 0.99% per purchase than pay an issuance or monthly fee. It suits you especially if Apple Pay or Google Pay is how you would actually pay, since a virtual card in a phone wallet is more useful than a virtual card in an app screen.

It does not suit you if you need cash from an ATM, if you want a physical card in the post, if you want to spend from a fiat balance inside the app, if you live outside the EEA, Switzerland and the UK, or if the idea of an account freeze without a clear explanation would keep you up at night. That last point is not hypothetical for this product; I come back to it in the section on what can go wrong.

Who they will give you the card

Eligibility is by residence, not citizenship. The card’s own wording is “Reside in one of the following countries”: the EEA’s 30 countries — Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden — plus Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The UK was added late: 2026-08-27 is the date the United Kingdom was added to card availability, in a run that began with the virtual card launch on 2026-02-25, phased to the EEA and Switzerland. So if you are in the UK, this is a recent development, not something long-settled.

One clear exclusion to note: the card cannot be used in Russia or Belarus, both of which sit on the restricted countries list — “Afghanistan, Belarus, … Russia, …” — alongside other sanctioned states. That list restricts where the card works, not just who can hold it.

Residence-based eligibility has a practical consequence worth spelling out. The card’s base currency follows your country of residence — EUR for EEA residents, CHF for Switzerland, GBP for the UK — and it cannot be changed after issuance. If you move countries, that matters.

If you are outside those three regions, none of the rest of this review applies to you, and I would not try to work around it. The eligibility rule is the rule.

How to get it

The route is short, and it ends in a card number in your app rather than an envelope.

• Download the SwissBorg app (iOS on iPhone, or Android).
• Open a personal account and complete KYC Level 2.
• On the Portfolio screen, tap Card and accept the terms.
• Choose your primary cryptocurrency.
• The virtual card is ready instantly.

KYC Level 2 is the level the card requires: a verified photo ID and a verified proof of address, and you must be at least 18. The platform’s account levels also carry transfer limits — Level 1 is a EUR 5,000 cumulative deposit/withdrawal limit, Level 2 is EUR 50,000 in and EUR 1,000,000 out, Level 3 is unlimited. One review page I read, Card Pilled, lists the same figures and says it last verified them on 2026-10-16, but that is a third-party source and not something the card’s own pages confirm. Processing times for verification and the stated reasons for rejection are not stated.

Two things to know about the card itself before you apply. It is a Mastercard debit card, and at the time of writing it is virtual only — physical cards are planned for a later phase, and the card says that depending on community demand they may come with an additional issuance and shipping fee. Delivery time, cost and replacement cost for physical cards are not stated. A virtual card is delivered instantly in the app on activation, with no shipping.

There is also a limit system I want to flag because you will meet it in week one. The card has daily, monthly and annual spending limits, plus limits on single transactions and on the number of transactions per day and per month. The exact figures are not stated publicly — the card says they are subject to regulatory requirements and risk assessments and may be adjusted at any time. Card spending also counts against the SwissBorg account’s total withdrawal limits tied to your KYC level.

Fees: what it really costs

This is the strongest part of the card, and the reason it scores 9 out of 10 on cost. Here is every fee I found, with the numbers as stated.

Now let me take three everyday payments and show you which lines apply, because that is where 0.99% either looks cheap or does not.

• A €20 lunch in Paris, paying in EUR. This is the clean case: your base currency is EUR, so the Mastercard exchange rate does not enter it. What you pay is the 0.99% conversion fee on the transaction, plus any real-time market-liquidity adjustment. On €20 that is roughly a fifth of a euro — small, but not zero, and it is charged on every single purchase rather than once a month.
• A £30 online subscription from London. Your base currency is EUR, so this one runs through the Mastercard exchange rate on top of the 0.99% conversion fee. Two costs, not one, and the second is not fixed by SwissBorg. Online payments also go through 3-D Secure with in-app biometric approval, which can mean an extra approval step at checkout.
• Withdrawing £50 from a cash machine in Zurich. You cannot do this. ATM withdrawals are not initially available and the card says the feature might be considered in a future iteration. If a cash machine in your life is non-negotiable, this card does not serve you, and no fee table will change that.

The honest summary: the cost structure is genuinely attractive for someone who spends from crypto and never touches an ATM. It is a per-transaction model, so it rewards frequent small payments less than a monthly-fee card with a low percentage, and the FX cost on non-base-currency spending is not the card’s to control.

How to top it up

There is no top-up step, and that is the concept that confuses people most. The card spends directly from crypto balances in the SwissBorg app. What you need is crypto in the wallet, and you choose which one.

Supported for card spending: BTC, ETH, SOL, BORG, USDC, USDG, EUROP and TGBP. You select one primary cryptocurrency plus optional backup currencies, and if the primary balance is not enough the system dynamically picks a backup. USDT and Tron are not named among the supported card currencies, which surprises a lot of people who arrive holding USDT.

Fiat balances cannot be used with the card. This is the sharp edge of the whole design: the app holds multi-currency fiat balances (EUR, CHF, GBP and others) but they are separate from card spending, so money sitting in your SwissBorg account as euros is money the card will not touch.

If you want to get crypto into the app in the first place, the deposit options and their costs are:

• Crypto deposits: free from SwissBorg’s side — you pay the sending platform’s and the network’s gas fees.
• Bank transfer: free from SwissBorg’s side, though your sending bank may charge you.
• Card, Apple Pay or Google Pay deposits: in Standard countries (most of the EU) 2.25%–1.5% by rank; International (for example the UK and Switzerland) 4.5%–3.75% by rank. Minimum deposit €10, minimum fee €5 at Standard and Bronze rank, €3 at Silver through Elite.
• Fiat top-up to the app by bank transfer: free.

Getting money back out is where the cost appears again. Fiat withdrawal from the app is a 0.10% execution fee with a minimum and maximum per currency — for example EUR minimum 1.50 and maximum 100, CHF minimum 5 and maximum 110, GBP minimum 1.50 and maximum 85. Crypto withdrawal is a 0.10% execution fee with a per-asset and per-network minimum and maximum, plus real-time network gas fees. Refunds from purchases land in your fiat account in the card’s base currency, so EUR, CHF or GBP.

One closing-off detail that only matters if you plan to leave: on account closure, funds held on the card are redeemable for up to 6 years, after which — 12 months from the end of the agreement — a monthly maintenance fee is deducted. If the agreement is ended within 6 months, a closure fee may apply.

Paying with it every day

Inside the app you get the virtual Mastercard and, if you use a phone wallet, Apple Pay and Google Pay. Apple Pay was initially available in Switzerland and France, requires the latest version of the app and KYC Level 2. Curve is supported too.

Some merchants are off-limits, and this list is worth reading before you rely on the card for a specific spend: gambling and betting, adult content and services, cryptocurrency purchases, financial services such as money transfers, illegal goods including drugs and weapons, cash advances, and certain government services. Note what that means for you: you cannot buy crypto with this card, and you cannot get cash through it.

Rewards work in a way that is different from ordinary cashback. Cashback is paid in BORG tokens, calculated as a percentage of the exchange fee on each card purchase, and the rate depends on your Loyalty Rank: Standard 5%, Bronze 15%, Silver 30%, Gold 50%, Platinum 65%, Diamond 80%, Elite 90%. The BORG you receive is locked for a certain period under the “Paid to Trade” programme — a loyalty scheme that launched on 2025-09-23 — so it is not immediately yours to sell. And the card is explicit that cashback is not guaranteed: SwissBorg reserves the right to modify, suspend or discontinue it at any time. Treat it as a small perk, not a reason to pick the card.

The ranks themselves are tied to BORG locked, across seven levels: Standard (0 BORG), Bronze (1,000 BORG), Silver (3,000 BORG), Gold (10,000 BORG), Platinum (30,000 BORG), Diamond (60,000 BORG), Elite (100,000 BORG). Higher ranks unlock higher cashback, a yield boost multiplier from 1x to 2x, priority access to Alpha Deals, governance voting power at 10 BORG for one vote, ecosystem reward multipliers and a referral boost.

On apps, the ratings are respectable but not remarkable: on Google Play (en_GB) 4.6 from roughly 15.2K reviews, on the App Store (Ireland) 4.4 from 88 ratings, read on 2026-10-21. The official SwissBorg website footer shows Google Play 4.2 and App Store 4.6. I mention the discrepancy because it is a small illustration of something true about review platforms generally — the number depends on which storefront you read.

If a payment goes wrong, the card’s dispute path is stated clearly. Contact SwissBorg through the app under Profile > Support or at [email protected] within 8 weeks of the transaction date; SwissBorg assists with resolving the dispute or forwards it to the card network. A refund — where the merchant did not specify the exact amount and it exceeded reasonable expectations — is issued within 10 business days of receiving the claim or the further information it needs. For unauthorised transactions your liability is limited to EUR 50 if the card is lost, stolen or misappropriated, except in cases of fraud or gross negligence, and you must report without undue delay and no later than 13 months. One thing to know in advance: refunds go to your fiat account in the card’s base currency, and the original crypto-to-fiat conversion fees are not refunded.

What can go wrong

I want to spend a moment here, because this is the part that decides whether this card is right for you.

• Account freezes without a clear explanation. This is the most repeated complaint theme I found. Users report accounts being restricted or frozen after deposits, sometimes taking weeks to resolve, without a clear explanation or warning, throughout 2025–2026 on Trustpilot and Google Play.
• Slow or unresponsive support. Also repeated throughout 2025–2026: tickets unanswered for days or weeks, with what users describe as radio silence after an initial response.
• Deposit cooldown periods. Users report funds locked during mandatory security holding periods after card, Apple Pay or Google Pay deposits, and frustration at not being able to access or withdraw.
• A regulatory fine against the issuer. On 2025-11-25 UAB Monavate, the card issuer, was fined €270,000 with a warning by the Bank of Lithuania for breaches related to AML, management and reporting obligations. The issuer is supervised — Monavate is authorised by the Bank of Lithuania under authorisation code LB002139901097 to issue electronic money and provide payment services — but the fine is a fact about 2025 and you should hold it in view.

The aggregate picture from users: a TrustScore of 3.1 out of 5 across approximately 1,900 reviews, per NeoBase aggregation read on 2026-09-15 — a third-party aggregation, not an official figure.

There is also the structural risk that comes with custody. The funds are held in the SwissBorg wallet — this is a custodial arrangement, not self-custody — so the balance sits with the provider. The mitigations the card offers are real: 3-D Secure for online transactions with in-app biometric approval, instant card freeze and unfreeze in the app, and spending limits. What it does not offer is deposit protection. Funds on the card are not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme; Monavate follows the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 for safeguarding. That is a different thing from a bank deposit guarantee, and if you are treating this card as a place to keep money rather than a place to spend it, that difference is the whole story.

If your virtual card is stolen, freeze it in the app or contact [email protected]. Support channels are in-app chat, that email address, and a help centre; the issuer Monavate is also reachable by phone on +37069870638 and at [email protected]. Communication is in English, per the card terms.

Who is behind all this. The app is owned by SBorg SA, at Rue du Grand-Chêne 8, 1003 Lausanne, Switzerland. BlockNodes SAS, at 29 rue Blanche, 75009 Paris, France, holds MiCA authorisation number A2026-011 from France’s AMF, granted around March 2026. The card issuer is UAB Monavate, incorporated in Lithuania with entity code 305628001 at Konstitucijos pr. 21a, LT-08130 Vilnius.

A short timeline, since the product is new and the dates explain a lot of what you will find: the “Paid to Trade” loyalty scheme launched 2025-09-23; Monavate’s fine 2025-11-25; a card design contest announced 2025-12-03; the official Mastercard partnership announced 2026-02-18; the virtual card launched 2026-02-25 in a phased rollout to the EEA and Switzerland; MiCA authorisation in around March 2026; Card Rulebook v0.1 published 2026-07-22; and the UK added on 2026-08-27.

One last thing, if your question is really “can I use this in my country”. A merchant can look up the card’s issuer country from the card number itself and may apply extra scrutiny when it differs from your billing address, and some merchants decline prepaid or foreign-issued cards as a result. A Lithuanian issuer will look foreign to a shop that expects a domestic card. That is not a SwissBorg problem, but it will show up in your life if you travel.

What to take instead

I looked at three alternatives so the comparison is real. Their scores come from the same exercise that produced mine, and their gaps are as telling as their strengths.

Here is how I would read that table.

If you want a physical card as well as a virtual one, Stella is the one of these that issues both, and it scores slightly higher than SwissBorg. Its official card page states no cashback, and the countries it is open to are not stated on the official site — its terms bar users under economic sanctions programmes and route US and European users through affiliates. Its fees are “described under this User Agreement and/or on the App”, so you would be reading them in the app rather than on a page.

If you are in the United States, the comparison shifts completely. Whop Cards covers consumers in 31 US states — Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming — and businesses in 41 states; 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. Its basis of eligibility, citizenship or residence, is not stated. It spends from a Whop balance, is starting from stablecoin collateral in a linked wallet, and offers 5% cashback at select merchants, currently Uber, with more planned — payout currency and conditions not stated. The card currency and type are not stated. Whop’s page says “No extra fees” without listing issuance or monthly amounts, and conversion and FX fees are not stated either.

If you want US banking rails and a USDC wallet, UniFi Card is a prepaid debit Visa from Lead Bank that receives funds via ACH, wire, SEPA (IBAN) or SPEI (CLABE) and supports paying out to a USDC wallet; the app also supports Apple Pay, and the listing claims “3% rewards on balances” — though card cashback specifically is not stated. Coins and networks beyond USDC are not stated on the listing, the card currency is USD, fees are covered only by “Fees may apply. See UniFi website for more details”, and I could not confirm availability from official pages.

What none of these alternatives changes: they are all custodial, all convert something to fiat to spend, and none of them gives you a bank deposit guarantee. The category has a floor of counterparty risk built in, and picking between them is about geography, rail and fees rather than about safety.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend this card, without much hesitation, to someone in the EEA, Switzerland or the UK who already keeps crypto in the SwissBorg app, pays most things by phone wallet, has no need for cash machines, and would value not paying an issuance or monthly fee more than avoiding 0.99% per purchase. For that person the cost score is real and the virtual-only limitation is minor.

I would recommend it with a caveat to someone who intends to hold a meaningful balance on the card. The combination of custodial funds, no FSCS protection, a 3.1 Trustpilot score built on freeze complaints, and a 2025 fine against the issuer is enough that I would keep spending money on the card rather than parking money on it.

I would not recommend it to someone who needs an ATM, a physical card, or the ability to spend from a fiat balance in the app. I would not recommend it to anyone outside the EEA, Switzerland and the UK. And if account freezes without explanation are the thing that would make you close the app and delete it, I would tell you honestly that this is the card’s most repeated complaint, and that you should go in knowing about it rather than finding out later.

Frequently asked questions

What is the SwissBorg card?

The SwissBorg card is a virtual Mastercard debit card that spends directly from crypto balances held in the SwissBorg app. It launched on 2026-02-25 in a phased rollout to the EEA and Switzerland, and the UK was added on 2026-08-27. A physical card is planned for a later phase, and depending on community demand may carry an additional issuance and shipping fee.

Is SwissBorg a bank?

No — it is not a bank, and this matters for your money. The app is owned by SBorg SA in Lausanne, Switzerland. The card itself is issued by UAB Monavate, an electronic money institution authorised by the Bank of Lithuania. Funds on the card are not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme; safeguarding follows the Electronic Money Regulations 2011.

How do I get the SwissBorg card?

Download the app, open a personal account, complete KYC Level 2 with a verified photo ID and verified proof of address, then on the Portfolio screen tap Card, accept the terms and choose your primary cryptocurrency. The virtual card is ready instantly, with no shipping. You must be at least 18.

Does the SwissBorg card require KYC?

Yes, and specifically KYC Level 2 for the card: verified photo ID plus verified proof of address. On the platform more broadly, Level 1 carries a EUR 5,000 cumulative deposit and withdrawal limit, Level 2 allows EUR 50,000 in and EUR 1,000,000 out, and Level 3 is unlimited. Card spending also counts toward those account withdrawal limits.

What does the SwissBorg card cost?

Issuance is free, and there is no service or annual fee. Each card transaction costs a 0.99% crypto-to-fiat conversion fee, with a real-time market-liquidity adjustment that may also apply. SwissBorg adds no separate FX fee, but payments in a currency other than your base currency are converted at the Mastercard exchange rate.

Can I use the SwissBorg card with Apple Pay?

Yes. Apple Pay and Google Pay are both supported, as is Curve. Apple Pay was initially available in Switzerland and France and requires the latest version of the app plus KYC Level 2. Because Apple Pay stores a device-specific number in the Secure Element rather than the card number itself, adding it to your wallet is the most practical way to use a virtual card day to day.

Can I use fiat money with the SwissBorg card?

No. The card spends from crypto balances only; fiat balances in the SwissBorg app cannot be used for card payments. The app does hold multi-currency fiat balances in EUR, CHF, GBP and others, but those are separate from card spending. Getting cash out of the app costs a 0.10% execution fee plus, for crypto, real-time network gas fees.

Is the SwissBorg card safe to use?

It has real safeguards and real structural limits. You get 3-D Secure for online payments with in-app biometric approval, instant freeze and unfreeze in the app, and spending limits. But the funds are custodial, they are not covered by deposit protection, and users repeatedly report account freezes without clear explanation, slow support and deposit cooldown periods. The issuer was fined €270,000 by the Bank of Lithuania on 2025-11-25.

Is the SwissBorg card worth it?

Worth it if you want a free Mastercard that spends crypto you already hold and you live in the EEA, Switzerland or the UK. Worth it less if you pay often in small amounts, since 0.99% is charged on every transaction, and not at all if you need cash from an ATM or a physical card in the post. The cashback in BORG is a perk, not a reason to choose, since SwissBorg can modify or end it at any time.

What if a payment on my SwissBorg card goes wrong?

Contact SwissBorg through the app under Profile > Support or at [email protected] within 8 weeks of the transaction. Where a merchant did not state an exact amount and it exceeded reasonable expectations, a refund follows within 10 business days of SwissBorg receiving the claim. Unauthorised transactions carry liability capped at EUR 50 unless fraud or gross negligence is involved, though original conversion fees are not refunded.

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