Visa has halted two cryptocurrency card providers, Xapo and Shakepay, from providing their services to customers who live outside of the borders of the European Union.
The two services, which provide debit cards for users to make electronic payments using cryptocurrency, have until October 15th of this year to stop providing to those customers who might be living outside of the European Union.
Shakepay said in a blog post published this week:
Our partner bank is being nudged by VISA to immediately stop issuing cards to residents living outside of the European Territory. As a result, any new sign ups to Shakepay will require to have an address of residence within this list of European countries.
All Shakepay users outside of these countries will have their cards deactivated on October 15th, 2017. This list includes most of us on the Shakepay team unfortunately.
Similarly, Xapo noted that only those customers who lived within the EU would be able to order new Xapo Debit cards, apologizing to “all of our non-European customers affected by the change” on its own blog.
The reason for Visa’s October 15th deadline was not reported.