Our Digital Payments coverage is brought you by Chillr: India’s 1st multi-Bank instant mobile payment app enabling fund transfers to anyone in your phonebook. Coinbase, a Silicon Valley startup that operates digital bitcoin wallets, has launched a bitcoin based debit card called the Shift Card in the US, reports Wired. The company mentions that the card is approved for use in all states in the US, although it's currently available only in California as a part of a beta launch. The new card is available to anyone with a Coinbase account, although the company is accepting only the first 1000 users. Users need to verify their identity and pay a $10 insurance fee to sign up. Post this, the card can be used to pay when buying from merchants based in the US, without paying a transactional fee. However, for international transactions and ATM withdrawals, users will be required to pay a small fee. How it works: Coinbase has partnered with Shift Payments for the card. Shift essentially users the Coinbase connect API to get access to a user account to carry out the transaction. Coinbase mentions that it might charge a fee to Shift for the conversion of bitcoin in the future, which seems to imply that Coinbase converts the crypto currency to USD, which is then transferred to Shift. Note that Shift has a tie up with Visa, which allows it to carry out secure transactions in bank currency, which is required as the end transaction is carried out in USD. As…
