Venmo Debit Card Launches And Here’s How To Get One

Popular peer-to-peer (P2P) payment app Venmo is testing physical debit cards that will allow its customers to shop at traditional brick and mortar stores using the funds their Venmo account. Square, a P2P competitor with Venmo, started marketing their own debit card. According to TechCrunch, Venmo is inviting users to a beta program that sends them a Venmo debit card that’s attached to their balance. That beta program was originally a pilot program for Venmo’s own employees back in June but is now being rolled out to normal users.

“We have started sending a limited number of beta invitations to test a physical Venmo card to some of our users. While we’re excited to hear what people think, beta features are not guaranteed to see a general release,” Venmo told TechCrunch.

From a revenue perspective, a physical debit card would allow Venmo to collect the merchant fees per transaction. This would in turn allow Venmo, owned by PayPal, to recoup the fees they pay the banks per transaction while keeping its core money payment services free for users. From a consumer perspective, this also provides a lot of convenience for people who prefer using physical cards. It also makes it easier to spend money that was just transferred into a user’s account without having to wait a day or two for the money to transfer to the user’s bank account. The money is immediately available to spend at places that have not yet partnered with Venmo.

The Venmo debit card is a Visa card issued by the Metropolitan Commercial Bank via Shift Financial. Shift Financial provides physical and virtual debit cards to payment providers. Like most debit cards, they come with a picture as a background and don’t appear to offer the customization that Square does with their sleek black cards.

The sign-up process is painless and free. Venmo users are notified about their eligibility when they open the app. Once the user’s identity is verified, the app asks to select a backup reload method in the off chance your Venmo balance doesn’t have enough to cover a purchase.