CoinJar creates Australia’s first bitcoin debit card

18 September 2014, Melbourne — CoinJar, the Australian startup making bitcoin accessible for everyone, today began trialling CoinJar Swipe, the first EFTPOS card that allows bitcoin holders to spend their digital currency anywhere they like.

Using the CoinJar Swipe card, customers taking part in the trial will be able to withdraw from their bitcoin account, converted to Australian dollars, at any ATM or purchase items at any retail outlet.

CoinJar Swipe is the first product in Australia to bridge the gap between the digital currency bitcoin and traditional payment methods. The new technology will greatly improve the bitcoin experience for consumers. 

CoinJar teamed up with emerchants, the leading prepaid payments solution provider in Australia, to develop Coinjar Swipe.

Asher Tan, co-founder and CEO of CoinJar, said the Swipe trial was an important leap in taking bitcoin into the mainstream Australian economy.

“We created Swipe because we simply wanted to make it easier for our customers to spend their bitcoin.

“Swipe demystifies bitcoin and makes it accessible to everyone through a secure platform. Our team is really excited about Swipe, and we look forward to receiving feedback from our customers.”

As part of the trial, 100 cards are being distributed to pre-registered CoinJar DNA members, who were asked on social media “What would you do with your CoinJar Swipe?” CoinJar received answers ranging from “Pay my bitcoin business bills” to “buy a sausage roll, sauce and an iced coffee for lunch”.

In line with CoinJar’s belief that bitcoin is a democratising force in finance, the cards will be allocated evenly between early adopters, everyday consumers and a wide variety of demographic characteristics. Customers will receive their cards from next week.

Bitcoins are being used by an estimated 500,000 Australians already, and that figure is rapidly growing. CoinJar alone has processed more than $50 million worth of bitcoin transactions in the past 12 months for more than 30,000 individual and business customers.

The next step will be a wider rollout of the technology in the near future. Customers can pre-register for further releases of the card at: https://www.coinjar.com/dna

For high-resolution images of the CoinJar Swipe card in action, please click here.

Kasi Reynolds

kasi@clickpr.com.au

0450 131 102

CoinJar is Australia’s best bitcoin platform, where people can easily buy and spend bitcoin. CoinJar provides a convenient and secure way to convert Australian dollars into bitcoin. For businesses, CoinJar provide tools to allow their customers to pay using bitcoin anywhere, anytime. Hundreds of businesses are already using CoinJar’s Merchant services. These include cafes, retail shops, and even real estate agencies. CoinJar is backed by leading investors AngelCube and Blackbird Ventures. StartupSmart CoinJar as one of the top 5 Australian new businesses to watch in 2014.

emerchants is a payments solutions provider of prepaid financial card products and services in Australia. By using their proprietary Secure

Account Management (SAM) system, the Company provides its clients with innovative financial service payment solutions for reloadable and non-reloadable prepaid card programs. emerchants are able to adapt to meet the expense management and funds disbursement needs of any organisation. Their corporate expense, petty cash, per diem, social payments and staff rewards programs are easy to implement and reduce administration burden and costs. emerchants is focused on the twin goal of delivering high quality payment systems to its customers and superior returns to its shareholders.

HP-RFi Payments Research from May 2014 estimates 2 per cent of all Australians have used bitcoins in the past 12 months.