Physical cards: plastic, and the verification it requires

Why plastic needs documents when a virtual card does not

The requirement comes from the issuing partner, not from Blomo. A physical card is embossed, personalised and shipped to a named person at a named address. The bank that issues it is required to know who that person is before it produces the card, and no provider can waive that requirement — whatever the marketing on a comparison site says.

Blomo states this on the product page rather than after you have paid or started an application. If verification is a problem for you, the virtual card is the product to use: it needs no documents at any stage and works everywhere the network is accepted, including in shops through Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Identity documents submitted for a physical card are checked by the verification provider. Blomo stores the identifier of a completed check, not the documents themselves.

What a physical card adds

A plastic card is accepted in the handful of places a virtual card is not: card readers with no contactless option, older terminals, and merchants whose policy rejects virtual card ranges outright.

It also carries the practical advantages of a card you can hand over: deposits at hotel desks and car hire counters, which frequently decline virtual cards, and cash withdrawal at any ATM.

Funding is identical. The card draws on the same Blomo balance, topped up in the same six assets, with the same conversion rule: the amount is recalculated at the Visa or Mastercard rate for the moment of the transaction, and Blomo takes no markup on it.

What it costs and how long it takes

A Blomo physical card costs 100 USDT, and that price covers both issue and delivery. There is no separate shipping charge and no surcharge by destination.

Production takes about 14 days from a completed identity check, and delivery about 14 days after that — roughly four weeks in total between finishing verification and having the card in hand. Order with that in mind if you need it for a specific trip.

Beyond the 100 USDT, a physical card is no more expensive to run than a virtual one: limits and fees are the same as the virtual card of the same product. The same minimum balance, the same 1% top-up fee, the same transaction and ATM rates, all published in the fee table.

How the two products compare

A virtual card is issued in about a minute, requires no documents, costs nothing for the first card on an account and 10 USDT for each one after that. It supports online payments, subscriptions and — on five of the six products — Apple Pay and Google Pay.

A physical card costs 100 USDT, requires verification before it is produced, and takes about four weeks to reach you. In exchange it is accepted in the places a virtual card is not, and its limits and fees are identical.

Most people who want a card to spend crypto online are better served by the virtual product. The plastic is worth the verification and the wait when you need a card in your hand.

What verification involves

The check is the standard KYC procedure every card issuer runs, and it has to be finished before production starts.

It happens once. It is not repeated for every payment, and it does not retroactively apply to virtual cards already issued on the account — those stay as they were, with no verification attached.

Sanctioned jurisdictions are excluded from physical card issue, as they are from card issue generally. That restriction comes from the card networks and applies to every issuer in the market.