The move is primarily a product upgrade. The current Tap card is euro-denominated, meaning that purchases in other currencies trigger a conversion at the point of sale. The new card is designed to let customers spend directly from whichever currency balances they hold in the app: a customer paid in sterling spends in sterling; a customer travelling in a local-currency market draws down a balance held in that currency. Tap says the multi-currency card has been its most-requested feature from its base of approximately 400,000 users.
The arrangement carries a direct revenue rationale. Card interchange fees and foreign-exchange margin are both operating revenue lines for the Group, alongside trading fees and what Tap calls Tap Earn income. Putting more currencies on a single card and expanding into additional markets widens the pool of transactions against which both revenue streams accrue. Tap did not disclose projected interchange volumes, FX spread assumptions or a timeline for the additional market launches.
Moorwand is an FCA-authorised Electronic Money Institution and a principal member of Mastercard, which means it can act as BIN sponsor without routing through a third-party processor for scheme access. That principal membership is commercially significant: it reduces the number of intermediaries between Tap and the Mastercard network, lowers per-transaction cost in principle and, according to Tap, gives the Group a single platform on which to develop new card features and payment use cases as it enters new markets.
Arsen Torosian , group CEO and co-Founder, said: “A multi-currency card has been the feature requested most often by our customers, and this programme delivers it.
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