Who actually issues your stablecoin card?
On 24 September the Federal Reserve asked for comment on two proposals for the stablecoin issuers it supervises: what must back each token, how much capital an issuer holds, and how a bank applies to issue one. Those proposals deal with the token. The card you spend it with has an issuer of its own, a separate company that most cardholders could not name. We went through the terms of the seven cards on our board and wrote down who it is.
The issuer is the company that holds the licence from Visa or Mastercard and stands behind the card number. The app on your phone is often a different company: it runs the brand, the rewards and the support chat, and it offers the card under the issuer's licence.
The difference shows when something goes wrong. The card terms set when a card can be suspended, how long you have to dispute a charge, and which court or arbitrator hears a complaint, and those terms are written around the issuer. A change at the issuer reaches every card built on it.
Here is the map for the seven cards we score, taken from each company's own pages, next to our Card Score out of 16.
| Card | Issuer as the company names it | Card Score |
|---|---|---|
| Wirex One | Wirex Limited in the UK, its own e-money institution (FCA). Transact Payments Malta Limited in the EEA, a separate e-money institution (MFSA). | 13/16 |
| ether.fi Cash | Third National, a Puerto Rico money transmitter in Rain's group. | 13/16 |
| KAST | Third National, with Rain named as programme manager for internationally issued cards. | 11/16 |
| RedotPay | Xfers (StraitsX) for the Singapore card. No bank or sponsor named for the Hong Kong programme. | 9/16 |
| Bybit Card | Left out on Bybit's EU site. Third-party reviews name Moorwand and Heuro. | 8/16 |
| Oobit | Third National for users outside the US. Pomelo in Brazil. | 8/16 |
| Bitget Wallet Card | Immersve in Europe and Latin America, DCS Card Centre in Asia, Fiat24 in mainland China. | 7/16 |
Three of the seven share one issuer. ether.fi Cash, KAST and Oobit all name Third National in their card terms. Third National is the trading name of Nimbus LLC, and Rain's privacy policy lists Nimbus LLC among the affiliates of Signify Holdings, Inc., the company that operates as Rain. The firm that runs the card infrastructure for these apps and the issuer named in their terms sit in one group.
Third National's own site says Nimbus LLC is licensed as a money transmitter by the Commissioner of Financial Institutions of Puerto Rico, NMLS number 2612780, and calls itself an issuer on the Visa network. A money transmitter licence is a different permission from a bank charter, and no deposit insurance comes with it. That is part of why all three cards carry our Watch tag.
Sharing an issuer still leaves room for big differences. ether.fi Cash settles from a smart-contract account the user owns, and scores 13. KAST keeps a custodial dollar balance, under terms that say its partners have no duty to keep those funds segregated, and scores 11. Oobit's card terms let the issuer suspend or cancel an account at any time, with or without notice, and it scores 8. The points are won or lost in what each app builds on top of the issuer.
Wirex One is the only card on the board with two points out of two on our issuer criterion. In the UK the issuer is Wirex Limited, its own e-money institution, authorised by the FCA. In the EEA it is Transact Payments Malta Limited, a separate e-money institution licensed by the MFSA.
RedotPay and Bitget Wallet name their issuers in part. RedotPay names Xfers, the Singapore-licensed payment institution behind StraitsX, for its Singapore card; for the Hong Kong programme, which serves other regions, its terms name RedotPay's own Hong Kong company and no bank or sponsor. Bitget Wallet names three partners by region, Immersve, DCS Card Centre and Fiat24, and gives no bank or e-money institution with its licence for the European card.
Bybit's EU site leaves the issuer out. Third-party reviews name Moorwand, a UK e-money institution, and Heuro, a French one, and we have not yet confirmed either from Bybit's own terms.
You can check your own card in two minutes. Open the cardholder agreement, which usually sits under Legal or Terms in the app, and search for the words "issued by". Look the company up on its regulator's public register. If the agreement names nobody, ask support in writing which company issues the card and under which licence, and keep the answer.
Two things changed on this site today. The profiles of the three cards issued by Third National now state the group link with its sources. And the Wirex One profile describes Transact Payments Malta Limited as a separate company; our earlier wording called it one of Wirex's own licences, and the change is logged on the corrections page.
See the list →Sources: Federal Reserve Board, press release of 24 September 2026, two proposals for payment stablecoin issuers under the GENIUS Act. Rain privacy policy, 16 July 2026, checked 30 September 2026. Third National, company site, checked 30 September 2026. ether.fi Cash cardholder agreement, international, 8 September 2026. KAST cardholder agreement, non-US, 20 March 2025. KAST Brazil Terms and Conditions of Service, effective 17 September 2026. Oobit card terms, effective 1 August 2025. Wirex One terms, checked 30 September 2026. Wirex and Transact Payments release, 25 October 2023. RedotPay Singapore page and Hong Kong cardholder terms, checked 28 September 2026. Bitget Wallet Academy, how to apply for the Bitget Wallet Card, 31 July 2026. CBL card records, checked 30 September 2026.