CoinJar announced the general release of CoinJar Swipe allowing its customers to spend their bitcoin at over 820,000 retail terminals and withdraw cash from bank ATM.
On 26 February 2015, Australian bitcoin company CoinJar officially opened up its debit card CoinJar Swipe to the customers. The system will operate on Australian EFTPOS network, which is supported by all main banks and includes 826,769 payment terminals all over the country.
By the way, according to the Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA), more than 17 million transactions are made each day via ATMs in Australia and EFTPOS terminal network.
In September, CoinJar invited its customers to beta-test Swipe seeking to improve the service. At the time, CEO of the company, Asher Tan told:
“We created Swipe because we simply wanted to make it easier for our customers to spend their bitcoin.”
The trial involved around 100 participants that used CoinJar until the firm made the system available to its customer base of 30,000 people.
According to the recent CoinJar blog post and the customers’ comments, the Swipe service was well-received:
“I do like the fact that I can load my BTC onto the card and access the money immediately, as opposed to waiting for the obligatory 2 banking days to receive funds in my bank account. The process was pretty straightforward, receiving the card, activating it, loading money onto it, using the card to buy groceries. All very easy. It’s definitely a step in the right direction to make Bitcoin more accessible for the masses. (Daniel, DNA member)”
Moreover, the team used the beta-test feedback to refine Swipe:
“CoinJar Swipe is convenient, easy to use, and built so you can use your bitcoin to pay for the everyday things, like your morning coffee and the bills.
To get CoinJar’s Swipe debit card, it’s necessary to live in Australia and be a verified CoinJar user. In addition, to obtain a bitcoin debit card, users need to pay a one time fee of $29 despite the fact that in September the company promised not to charge any activation fees.
At the time of the trial, Tan noted that the new service was launched with an aim to prompt more people utilize bitcoin and understand its advantages. CoinJar was not planning to obtain much profit from the system.
Anyway, about 500,000 Australians are already using bitcoin. And this cryptocurrency becomes even more popular.
“It is not controlled by a bank or other third parties, but by a network of computers worldwide backed by strong encryption that verify transactions multiple times to ensure that no fraudulent transactions occur,” Tan said. “This means nobody has total control over your money but you,” he added.
Eugenia graduated from Minsk State Linguistic University with a degree in Intercultural Communication, Translation/Interpretation (Italian, English). Currently she works as a business analyst, freelance interpreter and tutor. She’s fond of numismatics, photos, good books and sports, adores travelling and cooking.
