Tecnologia Avanzata dei Sistemi : TAS Group and Cointed to launch an innovative white label cryptocurrency dual prepaid card

Milan and Vienna, 22 November 2017- Cointed GmbH, an Austrian cryptocurrency exchange start-up and leading supplier for Multi-Cryptocurrency-ATMs in Europe, has found in TAS Group the ideal partner to advance its market proposition to the Card Business ecosystem. The clear impact of a sharp growing acceptance of bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies at brick&mortar retailers as well as on-line, has already been perceived as a threat to major Card Issuers and Acquirers' business models in today's market. Leading retailers all over the world are in the process of integrating bitcoin as a payment method. TAS Group, with its 30+ years' experience supplying Card Players in the evolving market landscape, from the rise of the major International Credit Card schemes, to the emergence of domestic and prepaid debit schemes, through the EMV transformation embraced by the majority of the global regions so far, has decided to play a role in facilitating its target market, the PSPs, to turn the threat into an opportunity for new revenues.

Through the partnership with Cointed, TAS Group will deliver, based on its cashless3.0 platform, a new payment product that will be co-branded and white-labelled, ready to be rolled-out off the shelf by Issuers and with a ready acceptance network letting users exchange their bitcoins into traditional currency and vice versa at any of the Cointed ATMs already active in the market, but even spend their bitcoins directly at selected retailers of the joining Acquiring partners.

The new card is a dual prepaid card, with both a cryptocurrency and a fiat currency plafond, the latter being spendable on any International circuit (VISA, MC, Amex, UPI, etc.) chosen by the Issuer. Cardholders can recharge their cryptocurrency or their traditional currency plafond at ATMs or on-line and through a dedicated app.

A preview of the innovative and seamless user experience of the new card will be presented at the Salone dei Pagamenti in Milan, November 22-24, at TAS Group's booth, together with one of the Cointed bitcoin ATM models, already in operation on the market.

'We have been actively monitoring the blockchain market developments from the beginning, years ago, being the first Italian vendor to implement in 2014 a Ripple driver in our interbank payments hub allowing Banks to pilot and evaluate the Ripple value proposition for cross border real-time payment transactions' says Dieter Schoene, Managing Director of TAS Germany, a subsidiary of TAS Group, 'Now the signals of growing interest and adoption of cryptocurrencies are very clear and we have decided to demonstrate how our cashless3.0 e-money software suite can easily integrate and manage innovative payments beyond the traditional schemes.'

Wolfgang Thaler, CEO and Founder of Cointed, adds: 'We are excited to explore the Italian market opportunities supported by a Partner like TAS Group, centrally positioned in the payments landscape with a core business in delivering enabling software platforms for innovative business models'.

The new pilot cards will initially manage bitcoin, being Cointed a miner in this field, but evaluations are in place to expand in the future including other cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero and Ripple.

Read the press release