Yesterday our Bitwala Card issuer WaveCrest Holdings Ltd received direction from Visa Europe to immediately suspend all Bitwala cards effective immediately. Unfortunately, neither Visa nor WaveCrest were able to provide us or you with more time to prepare for this announcement.
How card users are affected
Your Bitwala card is now deactivated and you will not be able to use it for further payments or withdrawals. This affects both physical and virtual cards.
Your funds are safe and you will get a refund
Bitwala has been assured that all affected users will get a refund for their card balance and any outstanding card top-ups directly into their bank account. We’ve created this support article to help you claim a refund. Please do note that the refund process will take approximately 30 days from form submission date.
If you have a pending chargeback on your card, your refund process will start once the pending chargeback has been settled by the merchant. Pending chargebacks are settled within 14 days, which would further delay the process of your card balance refund.
We will also be offering card order fee refunds to all users who ordered it on or after 1 December, 2017.
What is Bitwala doing next?
The Bitwala Debit Card remains one of the pillars of our service and we will make it again part of our product offering. Ever since we announced our vision, we have been approached by a number of alternative card issuers and we are already in discussions to bring a solution in the short term future.
We want to sincerely thank you for using our card. We are disappointed that we can’t serve you anymore and that the change came so quickly. As part of our commitment to you, we will send you an email once the Bitwala card becomes available again. We hope that in the meantime you will continue being part of the revolution and make the most of Bitwala’s Blockchain Banking and Bitcoin wallet.