Karta

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Karta scores 9 of 16 on the CBL Card Score. Karta Finance, Visa. Per-user Fireblocks wallet; self-custody claim unverified. Third National named; no licence or regulator.

CBL Card Score: 9 of 16

Criterion	Points	What we found	Source
Custody	1 of 2	Conflicting statements. The homepage says "Self-custody crypto wallets" and "Only you control your wallet" (official, karta.io, checked 20 Oct 2026). The help centre says deposited money sits in "your unique Fireblocks wallet address" and presents this as control without managing private keys yourself, which reads as Karta holding the keys (official, help centre, 11 Feb 2025). The card terms do not address custody, safeguarding or segregation (official, effective 5 May 2026). Scored as custodial with a per-user wallet address.	official checked 20 October 2026
Issuer and licence	1 of 2	"The issuer for this card program is Third National" (official, card terms, effective 5 May 2026). No bank or EMI licence, regulator or register reference is published by Karta or on Rain's legal pages (official, checked 20 Oct 2026).	official checked 20 October 2026
Availability	2 of 2	"Available to citizens and residents of most countries, with the exception of those listed in our unsupported countries list"; the full list is held by support and not published (official, help centre, 20 Oct 2025). The card does not work in Syria, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine and Venezuela (official, help centre, 4 Nov 2025). Cardholders must attest they are not US citizens, and the card is for persons outside the US (official, card terms). SEPA top-ups in EUR are offered (official, fees article, 3 Sep 2026). The Apple Pay article treats residents of the UK, EU states, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman as cardholders (official, checked 20 Oct 2026). No positive country list exists, so EU, UK and Gulf service rests on the "most countries" statement.	official checked 20 October 2026
FX fee on a foreign-currency purchase	1 of 2	Karta's balance is held in USDT, so every purchase in a currency other than US dollars carries a Visa international transaction fee of 1%, which Karta says is "separate from Karta's fees" (official, help centre, 26 Feb 2026 and 3 Sep 2026). The card terms allow a foreign exchange fee, a cross-border fee and foreign transaction fees of "up to 3%" each (official, card terms, effective 5 May 2026). A separate 1.5% card payment fee applies to all purchases in any currency, recorded under funding. Scored at the published 1% rate.	official checked 20 October 2026
Funding cost	0 of 2	Stablecoin top-ups free on Polygon, Base, Optimism, BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum, Solana and Ethereum; TRC-20 costs 5.90 USDT. SEPA (EUR) 1% plus 2 USDT; ACH 0.30% plus 2.50 USDT; SWIFT 0.30% plus 37.50 USDT. Virtual card 5 USDT (shown as reduced from 30 USDT); reissue 15 USDT. Plastic card 99 USDT, metal card 299 USDT, both on preorder with delivery charged separately by country and first shipments planned for October 2026 (official, fees article, 3 Sep 2026; preorder FAQ, checked 20 Oct 2026). Card payment fee 1.5% on every purchase (official, fees article, 26 Feb 2026). No monthly, annual or inactivity fees (official). Conversions at a mid-market rate with no separate fee listed (official). The 1.5% charge on every payment and the paid physical card set the score.	official checked 20 October 2026
Apple Pay and Google Pay	2 of 2	"Compatible with Apple Pay, Google Pay" (official, karta.io); the help centre carries separate Apple Pay and Google Pay guides, with Apple Pay limited to residents of countries on Apple's own list (official, checked 20 Oct 2026).	official checked 20 October 2026
Freeze and dispute policy	2 of 2	Card terms: disputes or errors must be reported within 60 days after the charge appears on a periodic statement, chargebacks are started through the Karta account under card network rules, and no review time is stated (official, effective 5 May 2026). Help centre: disputes go through the support team and "can take 30 to 90 days to resolve" (official, 25 Mar 2026). Unauthorised use is reported by email to support@karta.io; the phone number in the terms is blank (official). Lock and unlock is in the app (official, help centre).	official checked 20 October 2026
Yield on idle balance	0 of 2	None found on the site, the fees article or the help centre (official, checked 20 Oct 2026).	official checked 20 October 2026

Total 9 of 16. Official means the company's own site, terms or help centre. Third-party means a named review site with its own check date; a third-party fact is reported, not verified, and the score stands until an official source confirms or contradicts it.

Score history

20 October 2026

9 of 16

First score

Standing

Company	Karta Finance Inc., Wilmington, Delaware, USA, which calls itself "a financial technology company, not a bank" (official, karta.io, checked 20 Oct 2026). Card terms are governed by Puerto Rico law with arbitration seated in New York (official, legal.karta.io/b2c-card-terms, effective 5 May 2026). The card is issued by Third National under licence from Visa; no licence type or regulator is given (official, card terms). Third National is a trading name used within the Rain group, whose privacy notice lists Signify Holdings, Inc. and Rain Payments Services, Inc. as affiliates (official, Rain legal site, Jun 2026); a trade outlet reports it is operated by a Rain entity called Nimbus (third-party: TechFlow, checked 20 Oct 2026). This is a different company from the Miami-based "Karta" that sells US credit cards to private banking clients (third-party: Fortune, 17 Jun 2026). The app and help centre use "Karta Personal"; the card is the "Karta Visa Card".
Network	Visa, described as a Visa Signature card (official). official
Rails	Karta Finance Inc. names Third National as the card issuer under licence from Visa, with no licence type or regulator given (official). Deposited funds sit at a per-user Fireblocks wallet address according to the help centre, while the homepage describes the wallet as self-custody (official).
Website	karta.io
Health tag	Watch The issuer is named only as Third National with no licence or regulator disclosed, Karta Finance Inc. states it is not a bank, and no safeguarding statement was found while the homepage and help centre disagree on who holds the keys (official).
Last checked	20 October 2026

When it goes wrong

Card terms: disputes or errors must be reported within 60 days after the charge appears on a periodic statement, chargebacks are started through the Karta account under card network rules, and no review time is stated (official, effective 5 May 2026). Help centre: disputes go through the support team and "can take 30 to 90 days to resolve" (official, 25 Mar 2026). Unauthorised use is reported by email to support@karta.io; the phone number in the terms is blank (official). Lock and unlock is in the app (official, help centre).

The dispute route, in order: the company's own support desk, then the card network's chargeback rules, then the regulator of the issuer where one is named. A frozen card is a question, not a verdict: the Frozen Account Survival Kit applies to cards too.

Costs

FX	Karta's balance is held in USDT, so every purchase in a currency other than US dollars carries a Visa international transaction fee of 1%, which Karta says is "separate from Karta's fees" (official, help centre, 26 Feb 2026 and 3 Sep 2026). The card terms allow a foreign exchange fee, a cross-border fee and foreign transaction fees of "up to 3%" each (official, card terms, effective 5 May 2026). A separate 1.5% card payment fee applies to all purchases in any currency, recorded under funding. Scored at the published 1% rate. official
Funding	Stablecoin top-ups free on Polygon, Base, Optimism, BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum, Solana and Ethereum; TRC-20 costs 5.90 USDT. SEPA (EUR) 1% plus 2 USDT; ACH 0.30% plus 2.50 USDT; SWIFT 0.30% plus 37.50 USDT. Virtual card 5 USDT (shown as reduced from 30 USDT); reissue 15 USDT. Plastic card 99 USDT, metal card 299 USDT, both on preorder with delivery charged separately by country and first shipments planned for October 2026 (official, fees article, 3 Sep 2026; preorder FAQ, checked 20 Oct 2026). Card payment fee 1.5% on every purchase (official, fees article, 26 Feb 2026). No monthly, annual or inactivity fees (official). Conversions at a mid-market rate with no separate fee listed (official). The 1.5% charge on every payment and the paid physical card set the score. official
ATM	1 USDT plus 2.5% per successful withdrawal, 1 USDT per declined withdrawal, plus any operator fee (official, help centre, 26 Feb 2026). The homepage lists 1.5% plus 1 USDT instead (official, checked 20 Oct 2026).
Tiers	No tiers. Card types are virtual (5 USDT), plastic (99 USDT) and metal (299 USDT) (official, 3 Sep 2026).

Cashback, as of 20 Oct 2026

The homepage meta text claims "25% cashback on purchases", but the page body only describes earning from referred friends' spending and no rate on the cardholder's own purchases is published; the fees articles do not mention cashback (official, karta.io and help centre, checked 20 Oct 2026).

Cashback is a dated fact, not part of the Card Score. Promo rates change too often to score.

Availability

"Available to citizens and residents of most countries, with the exception of those listed in our unsupported countries list"; the full list is held by support and not published (official, help centre, 20 Oct 2025). The card does not work in Syria, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine and Venezuela (official, help centre, 4 Nov 2025). Cardholders must attest they are not US citizens, and the card is for persons outside the US (official, card terms). SEPA top-ups in EUR are offered (official, fees article, 3 Sep 2026). The Apple Pay article treats residents of the UK, EU states, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman as cardholders (official, checked 20 Oct 2026). No positive country list exists, so EU, UK and Gulf service rests on the "most countries" statement. official

Identity checks: Identity verification with an accepted ID document before the card is issued (official, help centre article titles, checked 20 Oct 2026).

What we still need confirmed

Facts marked official come from Karta Finance's own pages or terms. Facts marked third-party are reported by a named review site and count as reported, not verified. These items are open for the next Monday sweep:

• Who holds the wallet keys. Rescore custody to 2 if the terms or help centre confirm the user holds the keys; to 0 if funds are pooled. open
• Third National's licence type and regulator. Rescore issuer to 2 if a bank or EMI licence is confirmed. open
• The full onboarding country list held by support. Rescore availability to 1 if UK or Gulf residents cannot open an account. open
• Whether the 1.5% card payment fee stacks on the 1% Visa fee and whether the "up to 3%" in the terms is ever charged. Rescore FX to 0 if the effective charge on a non-USD purchase exceeds 1.5%. open
• Physical card delivery fee and whether the October 2026 first shipments went out. open
• DefiLlama's "Karta Card" entry links to conkarta.com and describes a $300-a-year US credit card, so it is not this product; do not use it for this record. open

See a mistake? Email hi@cryptobanklist.com. Every factual correction is logged on our corrections page.

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