Establish relationship with card provider (Visa)

0x4007 commented 1 year ago

@sergfeldman how is this coming along? I haven't heard updates in awhile but this was "assigned" over a month ago.

ubiquibot[bot] commented 1 year ago

@sergfeldman The time limit for this bounty is on 4/23/2023

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

@sergfeldman how is this coming along? I haven't heard updates in awhile but this was "assigned" over a month ago.

@pavlovcik Hey, the research is in progress and not yet completed.

I`m posting all the main findings in the comments of the discussion https://github.com/ubiquity/ubiquity-dollar/discussions/307

I think that it will be difficult for us to issue specifically a CREDIT card DIRECTLY from Visa at the moment. Having nothing specifically interesting for Visa, I see no reason to contact Visa directly due to the high competition - they stated that 4000+ projects applied to one of the programs in 2022.

At the same time, there are options for how to do this with the help of intermediaries https://github.com/ubiquity/ubiquity-dollar/discussions/307#discussioncomment-5278025

Several points need to be clarified with the intermediaries, first of all

Possibility of issuing a worldwide card (not only for one of the counties or regions)
Possibility of a credit limit

As for the DIRECT cooperation with Visa, I consider "niche product interesting for Visa" as the most promising direction

The steps

Describe the concept of a niche financial product that is interesting for Visa (for example, a dedicated card for developers https://github.com/ubiquity/ubiquity-dollar/discussions/307#discussioncomment-5354018)
After that, apply to the programs led by Visa, as well as others Program examples https://partner.visa.com/site/programs/fintech-program.html https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/everywhere-initiative/initiative.html

It is worth preparing legal and financial data, as there are requirements to be

A registered corporation in your region
In good financial standing

Other programs https://github.com/ubiquity/ubiquity-dollar/discussions/307#discussioncomment-5273514

Also, there are alternative options for direct cooperation with Visa that can be explored

For example, cooperation with their wallet https://github.com/ubiquity/ubiquity-dollar/discussions/307#discussioncomment-5624063

Visa Everywhere Initiative LGBTQ+ edition https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/everywhere-initiative/special-edition-competitions.html

0x4007 commented 1 year ago

I understand that credit cards are less common to issue. Let's just do a debit card. What's the status for issuing debit cards?

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

@pavlovcik Yep, issuing a debit card is easier than a credit card.

The status of issuing a debit card is similar to the one described above. I focused on researching a niche product that Visa or MasterCard might be interested in and ways of collaborating with them. If Visa or MasterCard accepts us into their program, it will open new opportunities for attracting investors and partners.

But if we just need to issue cards, then let's clarify the high-level requirements and find a card issuer: - What is our vision: audience - do we want to issue cards for DevPool developers and for us, or a wider audience - then what kind of audience? How many cards do we expect to issue and in what time frame? What amount of payments will be made via them? - Provider: Visa or MasterCard or Union Pay or any Can we consider issuing Visa cards from fintech startups or intermediary companies? - Card type: debit (not prepaid) - Base currency: USD or can be EUR or can be another - Region: the region of issue (the card can be used at all points supported by the provider, but the region of issue is related to KYC and taxation. At the moment I'm not sure that it is possible to issue a worldwide card) - Level: Basic or elite - Digital or plastic - Cost: max cost for the issued card that we are ready to pay - Customization needed for us: plastic card design, the connection of bonus programs, cards limits, other settings - Other requirements: for example 3ds via sms (which is paid), etc

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

@pavlovcik The situation in simple words https://github.com/ubiquity/ubiquity-dollar/discussions/307#discussioncomment-5639012

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

I contacted the 3 card issuer companies through their websites. They claimed to respond within 2 business days.

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Stripe

Hi there,

Thank you for reaching out to Stripe. I understand that you wish to issue branded debit cards and I will be happy to help.

Jumping right in, Stripe Issuing allows you to easily create, manage, and scale a commercial card program without any setup fees. Get started in minutes and control every detail of your program, from card design to approving transactions in real time.

You can find more information in the link below: https://stripe.com/en-ie/issuing

Should you have any account specific questions, I would encourage you to to take an extra authentication step before we can proceed. Our users account security is extremely important to us here at Stripe and as a result we can only give out specific information or take certain actions on a Stripe account if you are definitely authenticated yourself as a user on that account.We are going to need you to take extra authentication steps.

You can navigate to the URL below, login and resend the email to us using the form there: https://support.stripe.com/contact/login

Sending a message using that form while logged in will securely connect your message to the account you’re writing from. Thank you for understanding- we need to be certain that we are communicating with the legitimate account holder for certain issues to ensure the safety of your account information.

If you're having trouble in authenticating your account, kindly send us a screenshot so we can troubleshoot the issue and we will find another way to address your concern.

Rest assured, we will take a deeper look into this matter once you have verified your account with us. I am hoping to hear back from you soon.

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

So far, 1 card issuer (Stripe) has replied out of the 3 that I contacted. @pavlovcik Should I contact more issuers?

0x4007 commented 1 year ago

I understood that we were eligible for Visa's partner program - remember when I gave you my login credentials? I would be interested to invest/work with Stripe or Visa directly over the other options I can think of.

I also think that beyond just the physical cards, we should offer digital cards that can be used for online/digital phone (NFC/Apple Pay) payments.

Lastly I would like to see a feature, like how privacy.com does it, where the users have the ability to generate unique card numbers for privacy and money management purposes.

We can have users deposit their Ubiquity Dollars into our (centralized) platform where we can debit their dollars (off chain) to settle card payments. This gives our dollar another utility, for real world spending, independent of the DevPool conveniences we have explicitly discussed in the past.

@sergfeldman I would really hope that you can just tell them whatever regarding the information they are asking for because I would want to get our hands on functional cards/APIs for research/iteration purposes. Even if it's just a few physical cards and then access to the APIs for building.

But for now this is what I think makes sense in terms of vision. I hope that clarifies my perspective.

ubiquibot[bot] commented 1 year ago

Do you have any updates @sergfeldman? If you would like to release the bounty back to the DevPool, please comment /unassign

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Do you have any updates @sergfeldman? If you would like to release the bounty back to the DevPool, please comment /unassign

@ubiquibot thank you :)

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

I understood that we were eligible for Visa's partner program - remember when I gave you my login credentials? I would be interested to invest/work with Stripe or Visa directly over the other options I can think of.

I also think that beyond just the physical cards, we should offer digital cards that can be used for online/digital phone (NFC/Apple Pay) payments.

Lastly I would like to see a feature, like how privacy.com does it, where the users have the ability to generate unique card numbers for privacy and money management purposes.

We can have users deposit their Ubiquity Dollars into our (centralized) platform where we can debit their dollars (off chain) to settle card payments. This gives our dollar another utility, for real world spending, independent of the DevPool conveniences we have explicitly discussed in the past.

@sergfeldman I would really hope that you can just tell them whatever regarding the information they are asking for because I would want to get our hands on functional cards/APIs for research/iteration purposes. Even if it's just a few physical cards and then access to the APIs for building.

But for now this is what I think makes sense in terms of vision. I hope that clarifies my perspective.

@pavlovcik Thank you for the input! Potentially, Visa Sandbox can cover this need. I will get the access and share to you. Simultaneously, I will continue research on other options.

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Potentially, we will have a call with Marqeta (one of the leading card issuers)

0x4007 commented 1 year ago

Potentially, we will have a call with Marqeta (one of the leading card issuers)

https://t.me/UbiquityDAO/27489/29893

You should be able to handle this without me. I don't want to be on introductory calls. Good luck @sergfeldman

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Potentially, we will have a call with Marqeta (one of the leading card issuers)

https://t.me/UbiquityDAO/27489/29893

You should be able to handle this without me. I don't want to be on introductory calls. Good luck @sergfeldman

@pavlovcik Okay! Please confirm your requirements:

Provider: Visa
Card type: debit (not prepaid)
Base currency: USD
Region: the region of issue is the US
Level: Basic (not elite)
Digital (no plastic)
Cost: max cost for the each issued card that we are ready to pay is 5 USD per month, issuing should be free
Customization needed for us: no customisation
Other requirements: no other requirements

ubiquibot[bot] commented 1 year ago

[ CLAIM 200 DAI ]

0xC3fdC48...34a6fDf3

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

[ CLAIM 200 DAI ]

0xC3fdC48...34a6fDf3

The task was closed not intentionally.

0x4007 commented 1 year ago

Provider: Visa

Card type: debit (not prepaid)

Base currency: USD

Region: the region of issue is the US

I need to get my hands on one so can we do Asia?

Level: Basic (not elite)

Digital (no plastic)

Cost: max cost for the each issued card that we are ready to pay is 5 USD per month, issuing should be free

Monthly charge? I'm against that. Are there no alternatives?

Customization needed for us: no customisation

Other requirements: no other requirements

I think at minimum I would want a digital card added to my Apple Pay. That way I will be able to use it for most things. A physical card of course will work for everything else but is not 100% necessary for "on-the-field" research.

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Provider: Visa, MC, do not consider others

Region: Asia 1) Republic of Korea 2) Singapore the region where card issuing is not limited to residents only the most suitable region to issue cards to spend in Asia no KYC cards

Base currency: USD

Cost: The lower the better, transaction fees are better than fixed fees https://stripe.com/pricing#pricing-details

Card type: debit

Level: Basic (not elite)

Digital (no plastic would be good but not mandatory) Customization needed for us: the most customization - generate card number, rotate the card number, alias, in the style of privacy.com Easily issuing and terminating cards
https://privacy.com/unique-card-number

Other requirements: no other requirements

Number: 20 per 6 month

The use case: cash out the bounties by DevPool developers

Potential idea - the credit limit for bounty hunters who already solved bounties The card is linked to the NFT

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Request

Hello, Ubiquity is building a freelance marketplace embedded into GitHub. We need the cards for the developers-freelancers located accross the world. The primery use case is cash-out crypto to the debit card and then spending in different countries. The secondary use cases are Perks and Rewards, Buy Now Pay Later programs.

The vision on the card program:

Card provider: Visa or MasterCard

Region: we are looking for 1) The most suitable region to issue cards to spend in the Republic of Korea or a region where card issuing is not limited to residents only 2) No KYC cards

Base currency: USD

Cost: The lower the better, transaction fees are better than fixed fees

Card type: Debit (in the future can be credit)

Card level: Standard (not elite)

Digital card (in the future can be plastic)

Customization needed: generate new card number easily - issue and terminate cards in the style of privacy.com https://privacy.com/unique-card-number

Number of cards: from 1 to 20 cards per first 3 month

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Responce from Stripe

Thanks for reaching out and for your interest in Stripe.
Based on a quick review of your business, we’ve determined that your business model might be included on our Restricted Business list, which would mean we can’t support it.

To help us determine if we can support your business, we recommend creating and activating your account now so that we can conduct a full review. Going through this process in advance ensures you and your developers don’t spend time integrating Stripe if we’re ultimately unable to support your business.

If we need any further details about your business once you’ve set up your account, we’ll reach out to let you know. In the meantime, we’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have. — The Stripe team

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Contacted https://stripe.com/ - contacted multiple times, rejected https://www.marqeta.com/ - contacted 1 time, planned a call https://www.checkout.com/ - contacted twice, no response https://www.intergiro.com/ - contacted 1 time, rejected https://www.chainswipe.com/ - contacted 1 time, no response www.ionia.io/ - contacted 1 time, no response https://www.paysafe.com/ - contacted 1 time, no response

To contact https://striga.com/ https://www.hydrogen.tech/ https://www.unlimint.com/ https://optimuscards.com/

Simultaneously will look for an issuer in Republic of Korea for non residents https://aspireapp.com/

0x4007 commented 1 year ago

Restricted Business list

I looked at their docs. Basically it's case-by-case basis and we're probably going to need a Singapore entity.

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

After long discussions, Stripe support announced that they will inform us of the decision on our case within 10 business days

0x4007 commented 1 year ago

After long discussions, Stripe support announced that they will inform us of the decision on our case within 10 business days

Curious to Q&A discuss results on a call.

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Attempts to register the Ubiquity business account have been unsuccessful so far. At the moment, I can't predict how long it will take to issue cards from the Ubiquity account. Some details https://github.com/ubiquity/ubiquity-dollar/discussions/307#discussioncomment-5791196

As a temporary solution, I can offer to issue a personal card for expenses in the Republic of Korea.

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

@pavlovcik Issuing a personal card in the Republic of Korea itself for a non-resident in most cases requires the Alien Resident Card (ARC).

Alternatively, you can consider Wise, Capital One, or other international cards. https://www.finder.com/travel-money/south-korea https://wise.com/us/blog/international-prepaid-debit-cards https://wise.com/us/travel-money/south-korean-won-card

0x4007 commented 1 year ago

issue a personal card for expenses

This doesn't make sense to me. If a "personal card" is issued, doesn't that mean that it's with an existing bank, and that we are not the provider?

As long as we are able to access the card issuing APIs, and finance cards (cash out Ubiquity Dollars and then handle fiat liquidity with a Ubiquity fiat bank account) then we can properly begin research according to my vision.

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Intergiro

Thank you for reaching out to us. We can only accept entities registered in the European Economic Area, not the UK. If you have an entity in the European Economic Area you can sign up for our waiting list for business banking.

I'd like to clarify that we can only send the cards for company expenses to addresses in the European Economic Area, except for virtual ones which can be issued everywhere. Also, I'd like to clarify that our cards are connected to Euro.

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

This doesn't make sense to me. If a "personal card" is issued, doesn't that mean that it's with an existing bank, and that we are not the provider?

@pavlovcik Yes, from the Ubiquity cards' point of view, releasing a personal card does not make sense. I'm just worried that you have a payment card while we are looking at how to issue Ubiquity cards.

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Simultaneously with "classic" card issuers I'm contacting wallet-as-a-service providers. https://www.paysafe.com/en/embedded-wallets/ https://youtap.com/products/card-management-and-processing/white-label-digital-wallet-and-card/

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Stripe

Unfortunately, our banking-as-a-service and card issuing products don’t support crypto at this time. However, Stripe does support crypto with our payments products: https://stripe.com/use-cases/crypto.

We are considering crypto for our BaaS products in the future though, so I’ve made a note to reach back out when we expand our product capabilities.

With that being said, in the future if you have a new use case with which you'd like to use Stripe Issuing, we'd recommend directly filling out the sales contact form again as that will get your request in front of a sales team member who'd be able to assist!

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Responses from wallet-as-a-service providers whom I asked for helping in issuing cards:

sdk.finance

Your company can develop the product on top of our Platform. We do not provide card issuing - it's a matter of an agreement of a vendor and integration of it but based on my experience it will be hard for you to find a vendor on this stage. I recommend to start your project without cards and generate some transactions / customers experience. With those numbers you can pitch card issuing vendors and activate such a service in the future.

Velmie

Velmie is a technology company. We help our clients to issue cards with the help of our partners. Due diligence process is pretty strict. Considering the current tightening crypto regulation, our partners do not onboard similar clients.

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Currently, I'm reaching out to relatevly small non classic card issuers - neobanks and payment services.

https://www.airwallex.com/platform/issuing

https://mercuryo.io/baas/

https://arival.com/product/for-blockchain-and-web3

ubiquibot[bot] commented 1 year ago

Do you have any updates @sergfeldman? If you would like to release the bounty back to the DevPool, please comment /unassign

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

Marqeta refused to start cooperation now but will be glad when we reach the minimum requirements The details https://github.com/ubiquity/ubiquity-dollar/discussions/307#discussioncomment-5848297

ubiquibot[bot] commented 1 year ago

Do you have any updates @sergfeldman? If you would like to release the bounty back to the DevPool, please comment /unassign

ubiquibot[bot] commented 1 year ago

Do you have any updates @sergfeldman? If you would like to release the bounty back to the DevPool, please comment /unassign

0x4007 commented 1 year ago

That's very unusual that it followed up three times. @0xcodercrane

ubiquibot[bot] commented 1 year ago

Do you have any updates @sergfeldman? If you would like to release the bounty back to the DevPool, please comment /unassign

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

We will have a call with Aspire. The topics - business registration in Singapore, card issuing, cashback and Buy Now Pay Later services.

ubiquibot[bot] commented 1 year ago

Do you have any updates @sergfeldman? If you would like to release the bounty back to the DevPool, please comment /unassign

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

The first time I got not negative response:

Airwallex can most likely support you. I just have a few questions if you can help answer them below:

Are the freelancers 1099s of Ubiquity?
Are you planning to pay the freelancers on borderless cards? Or what's the use case for the cards and the freelancers?

ubiquibot[bot] commented 1 year ago

Releasing the bounty back to dev pool because the allocated duration already ended!

sergfeldman commented 1 year ago

/assign

ubiquibot[bot] commented 1 year ago

@sergfeldman The time limit for this bounty is on Fri, 19 May 2023 16:16:47 GMT

Your currently set address is: 0xC3fdC486EEa63D7960e50CC5409fbeA434a6fDf3 please use /wallet 0x4FDE...BA18 if you want to update it.

ubiquibot[bot] commented 1 year ago

Releasing the bounty back to dev pool because the allocated duration already ended!

0x4007 commented 1 year ago

Are the freelancers 1099s of Ubiquity?

Pretty sure that 1099 is a US tax code. We're not a US company so technically speaking this is a no. Interpreting what they could mean (are the freelancers contractors of Ubiquity - who submitted their tax information to Ubiquity) we could say that for our beta it is something we could accomodate (just core team for example.)

Are you planning to pay the freelancers on borderless cards? Or what's the use case for the cards and the freelancers?

For our beta we can make accommodations to make them happy. But yes, the vision is to have Visa cards that could be spent anywhere that Visa is accepted.

ubiquibot[bot] commented 1 year ago

@sergfeldman The time limit for this bounty is on 5/22/2023

ubiquity / card-issuance