The card you already use if you are inside hi — and a hard look at what nobody publishes

Updated October 2026

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The hi card is not really a card you go shopping for. It is a payment card that arrives as part of an account you already hold — you open the hi app, you already have a balance and an IBAN in euros or pounds, and the card is there waiting. That framing matters more than any feature list, because it decides whether this is the card for you or merely the card that came with something else. If you came here looking for a crypto card the way you would look at a bank account opening, you will finish this page disappointed: almost nothing about the economics, the eligibility rules or the limits is published on the official pages. You will also finish it better informed than most people who hold one.

Here is the short version before the detail. The card works where Mastercard works, it is virtual, it draws on a euro or pound IBAN by default, and the app lets you set one secondary currency so you can also spend crypto you hold at hi. Rewards are advertised as crypto you can earn, with no rates published. The fee schedule is not stated. The eligibility list is not stated. The limits are not stated. And the one review aggregate I could find puts it at 1.8 out of 5 from 587 reviews, with a small number of reviews in the last twelve months — a score that deserves an explanation rather than a shrug.

That combination — functional product, near-total silence on the numbers, poor public rating — is what produces the 4.9 out of 10 I give it. Not a broken card. A card where you are asked to trust rather than to compare.

The conditions described below are current as of October 28, 2026.

The verdict: 4.9 out of 10

The score is not a rounding of “avoid”. It is a real, functioning card that will probably work for the person it was designed for. It is just that the designer’s audience is narrow, and anyone outside it is choosing blind.

The card suits existing hi app members in Europe, paying from an IBAN. If that is you, the card is doing a sensible job — a Mastercard virtual card on your existing euro or pound account, no separate banking relationship to manage. If you are not that person — if you are comparing crypto cards for the first time, or you need a card with published limits and a real fee schedule — then this is the wrong page of the internet to be optimising.

The 2 out of 5 for reliability pulls hardest, and I want to be exact about what it rests on. It rests on user reports, not on a regulator or a court. Users described withdrawal trouble during the UK exit in 2023–24, a rewards rate cut such as 8% down to 1% in July 2023, a card blocked for two months alongside Google Pay not working in August–September 2023, losses as the HI token fell, and allegations of a rug pull. Some of those complaints are about the token, not the card; some are about a period when the UK market was being unwound. None of that makes a card unsafe to hold in the ordinary sense, but all of it makes a 1.8 average something you should read in full rather than skim.

Will they give you the card?

Short answer: probably, if you already have a hi account, and you cannot tell from the official pages whether that is true of you.

The official page does not state which countries are eligible. That is the finding, and it is an unusual one to sit with. What I can tell you is that unofficial sources — Mastercard and press coverage from 2022, not hi’s own material — describe the card at launch as offered to members in 25+ EEA countries and the UK. Reviews on Trustpilot report the UK exit later, which matches the withdrawal complaints in those same reviews.

So the honest picture is: a European footprint, historically including the UK, changing since 2022, and no published current list. If you are outside Europe, you are guessing. If you are inside Europe, you are probably in scope but you cannot verify it from the site.

One structural point about who gets the card. Everything about identity sits behind a verification step: the card’s own wording is that once your address has been verified, you can activate the card, and activation happens in the app’s Card section. Documents required and minimum age are not stated. The help centre does contain an “Identity verification (KYC)” collection, but the individual articles were not available to me, so I cannot tell you what they ask for.

Do not read that silence as “no checks”. Any regulated operation in this space runs customer due diligence — name, address, date of birth, nationality, identity documentation, a sanctions check, and a politically-exposed-person determination. If due diligence cannot be completed, EU rules require the institution to decline the transaction or end the relationship. Accounts being frozen pending documents is the normal consequence of that process, not a punishment.

The practical thing to do: open the app and look. Eligibility will be visible in your account long before it appears on any web page, and that is faster and more reliable than anything I can reconstruct from 2022 press coverage.

How to get it

There is no separate application. The route is the app, and it is short.

The card is a virtual debit card — the official wording is that virtual debit cards are “now available”, and a help article of 30 June 2026 states the same. Delivery of a physical card is not stated on the page I read; what the page presents is virtual. So the sequence looks like this:

• You already hold a hi account with an IBAN in EUR or GBP.
• Your address gets verified.
• Activation happens in the app, in the Card section.
• The card number is available to store in a mobile wallet — subject to the separate question of whether Apple Pay and Google Pay work, which I address below and which the card’s own pages do not confirm.

The card works where Mastercard is accepted, which hi puts at more than 90 million merchants. That is the standard Mastercard network acceptance figure, not a hi-specific guarantee, so read it as “a normal Mastercard virtual card” rather than “90 million places we have personally tested”.

What is missing here is as important as what is there. No application form, no documents list, no age statement, no KYC tiers, no delivery estimate, no physical option mentioned either way. The help centre has an identity verification collection and a “hi Benefits” collection on tier-based membership by HI held, but neither was available to me in detail.

Fees: what it really costs

This is the section where hi is quietest, and I want to resist the temptation to guess. Issuance fees, monthly fees, ATM fees, limits: none of it is stated.

What exists outside the official pages, and you should treat as unofficial: a third-party review describes no transaction fees, no FX fees and no issuance fee, with issuance free for eligible users who complete KYC, while cautioning that fees may apply later. That is one undated source. It is not a schedule. It is a snapshot.

Now the part I can walk you through, because it follows from the currency design rather than from any published price. You hold an IBAN in EUR or GBP. Those are the two currencies the card operates in. If you pay in a shop whose currency is neither, something has to convert — and the rate and the fee attached to it are exactly what is not published.

Three everyday payments, and what applies:

• A coffee in Berlin, cardholder has a EUR IBAN. This is the clean case. The IBAN currency and the transaction currency match, so no conversion is involved. Whatever fee exists on the hi side, this is not where it bites.
• A coffee in Berlin, cardholder has a GBP IBAN. A conversion happens, from pounds to euros, at a rate and a fee that hi does not publish. This is the payment where the missing fee schedule becomes a real number on your statement.
• A subscription priced in USD, paid from a crypto balance at hi. You are setting a secondary payment currency in the app, and spending from what you hold at hi. The conversion path, its rate and any spread are not described. This is the case where the crypto side of the card actually does something, and it is also the case with the least documentation.

The practical consequence: if you keep your spending in the same currency as your IBAN, the undisclosed parts matter least to you. If you travel, or if you plan to spend from crypto, you are spending money on a conversion whose cost you cannot look up in advance. That is not a reason to refuse the card. It is a reason to keep your IBAN currency as your spending currency unless you have a specific reason not to.

One more design note. The card is a virtual Mastercard debit card drawing on a balance, which means it behaves like a prepaid card: you cannot overdraw it, and when the balance runs out you top up or switch the secondary currency. There is no credit line and no interest, which is worth something — but also no buffer if an authorisation holds funds. A declined authorisation can leave a hold on your balance for several days, typically up to seven.

How to top it up

The card is funded by default from your own IBAN — the one in EUR or GBP you already hold with hi. Transactions are covered by IBAN funds. That is the whole primary mechanism, and it is why the card feels like an extension of your existing account rather than a new pot of money.

The second mechanism is crypto. You can pay with crypto held at hi, one secondary currency at a time, set in the app under secondary payment currency. That is the feature the crypto-brand wrapping is really selling.

What is not stated: which coins, which networks, how the conversion is priced, how long it takes, whether there are minimums, and whether withdrawing money out of hi is possible on terms anyone has published. Withdrawal fees: not stated. Withdrawal times: not stated. Coins and networks: not stated.

That last omission has teeth, and it is worth understanding why even though it is generic to this whole category rather than specific to hi. Stablecoins live on different networks. Circle lists USDC as natively supported on 38 networks as of 16 September 2026, including Ethereum, Solana, Base, Polygon PoS, Avalanche, Arbitrum and Stellar. Tether describes USDT as issued across multiple blockchains including Ethereum, Tron, Solana, Polygon and Avalanche. These are not interchangeable: if you send on a network your provider does not support, or to an address belonging to a different network, the transfer can be lost or need manual support recovery with no guarantee. Blockchain transfers are irreversible by design. So “which network do I send on?” is a question with real money attached, and hi’s pages do not answer it.

There is also a stablecoin caveat that matters before you plan around stable balances. A stablecoin aims to hold a stable value against a fiat currency, but stablecoins are not necessarily stable — TerraUSD collapsed in May 2022, and USDC temporarily lost its peg in March 2023 during the US banking crisis. Tether also states that it disables tokens in wallets on the OFAC sanctions list and has frozen funds tied to illicit activity, so stablecoins are not censorship-proof in the sense some people assume.

Top-up options in short:

• From your IBAN — the default path, same currency, the cleanest case.
• From crypto at hi — one secondary currency at a time, set in-app, with coins and networks unlisted.
• Withdraw back out — terms not stated anywhere I could find.

Paying with it every day

Everyday use is where this card scores worst for a simple reason: it is virtual only, and the mobile wallet story is unconfirmed.

It is virtual. That means no pocket, no physical card, no fallback if your phone is dead, no ATM card in a country where you need one. If you are someone who has had a bank card taken away, or who travels to places where cash still settles bills, the absence of a physical card is not a small inconvenience — it can be the whole problem. The official pages do not state whether a physical card exists at all, which is different from stating that one does not.

Mobile wallets are the escape route from “virtual only”, and here I have to report an absence. Apple Pay and Google Pay are not officially named. In the reviews, Google Pay did not work. That is a user report about a specific period, not a current specification, and it is exactly the kind of thing that changes without notice — but until hi itself confirms which wallets the card can be added to, treat wallet use as unverified.

The rewards line is thinner than it sounds. The page says users can “earn crypto rewards” — with no rates and no conditions. Unofficial launch coverage from 2022 said 1–10% back on spending depending on tier. And the Trustpilot complaints include a rate cut, such as 8% down to 1% in July 2023, plus tier changes. So the shape of the offer is: a range that once existed, subject to change, with no published current figure. A rewards rate that is neither published nor stable is worth roughly zero in your planning.

The app itself: hi app, with a Card section where activation happens. I could not identify the App Store listing by search, so store ratings are not stated to me and I will not guess at them. The help centre exists in English and French. Disputes and chargeback handling: not stated.

One practical note on why cards like this get declined at the till, because it will save you embarrassment. Merchants can look up the issuer identification number at the front of your card number and see which institution and country issued it, and may apply extra scrutiny when the issuer country differs from your billing address. Some merchants decline prepaid or foreign-issued cards for exactly this reason. A virtual card issued through a European app, used in a shop that expects a domestic bank card, can look foreign. That is a general property of how card numbers work, not a hi defect — but it is why “it works everywhere Mastercard is accepted” and “it works everywhere I am” are different claims.

What can go wrong

Nothing is disclosed about security, no safeguarding details are published, and the support channels, languages and hours were not available to me beyond the existence of a “Contact hi” collection. So let me separate what I found from what is generically true, and be clear about which is which.

The things that actually happened, per user reports on Trustpilot from 2022 through 2025:

• The UK exit and withdrawals. Users report problems withdrawing around the UK departure in 2023–24, and members being told to withdraw by January, per December 2023 reports. This is the largest single cluster of complaints and the one that most directly affects whether the card still makes sense for you.
• Rewards reduction. A cut such as 8% to 1% in July 2023, alongside tier changes in 2022–23.
• Card blocked, wallet failing. A card blocked for two months, with Google Pay not working, in August–September 2023.
• Token losses and fraud accusations. Losses as the HI token fell, and rug-pull allegations, in 2023–25.
• The aggregate. Trustpilot 1.8 out of 5 from 587 reviews as of 21 October 2026, with one review in the last twelve months.

The company picture is also worth putting on the record, with the right caveats. Starting data names hi Technology Limited. Press from 2022 says the card was issued by Moorwand Ltd, a Mastercard principal member, with a Contis partnership announced for the debit card and fiat accounts. The official page is silent on all of this. That is a naming fact, not a risk fact — but for a card funded from an IBAN, knowing which institution actually holds your money is not a trivial question, and here the answer has to be sourced from press coverage rather than from the card.

The generic risks, which apply to this category and are worth holding in mind without pretending they are hi-specific:

• Programme closure. Card programmes do get shut down. Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX on 13 November 2022 and the FTX US debit card was wound down by its issuer. WaveCrest, a Visa issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing all WaveCrest-issued Visa programmes. Closures typically follow a pattern: notice, then spending and loading stop, then users are asked to withdraw remaining balances. That last step is where you get hurt.
• Custody risk. If crypto sits with a provider rather than in your own wallet, you are trusting them with the credentials. Custodial platforms have a real record: Mt. Gox, about US$350 million reported stolen 2011–2014; Coincheck, about US$400 million in 2018; Ronin Network, US$625 million in 2022. Transfers are irreversible and a stolen key has no recovery.
• Fund safeguarding is not the same as a bank deposit. EU electronic money institutions must safeguard customer funds by segregating them or insuring them, but those funds are not bank deposits and may not sit under a deposit guarantee scheme. This is precisely the distinction that bites when a provider’s own reviews are at 1.8.
• Holds and declines. A declined authorisation can leave a hold on your balance for several days.

What I would do with this list: read the Trustpilot reviews in full, sorted by date, and look specifically at the most recent ones. One review in the last twelve months is a thin basis for a strong conclusion — in either direction. Then check whether the withdrawal story has changed since the UK exit, because that is the question that determines whether the card is a convenience for you or an obstacle.

What to take instead

I am comparing on the same axes: who is eligible, what the card is, what it costs, how you fund it, what rewards exist. Where a competitor publishes a number and hi does not, that difference is itself the finding.

Three observations from that table.

Morse scores highest of the three alternatives and, like hi, is virtual-only — “fully virtual for now”, a Visa prepaid debit spending from a balance in any currency. Where it is genuinely more open than hi is the fee language: “zero foreign exchange fees or markups”, conversions at the real exchange rate with no markup, and paying with the card online and contactless is free. It also names its funding routes in detail, including which stablecoins are free on which network and which carry a fee. Its gating problem is eligibility: 18 or older, resident in a supported country, app in over 140 countries, closed-beta invite codes for a list including Australia, Hong Kong SAR China, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand, Türkiye and the United Kingdom. It also cannot serve customers subject to US sanctions, and UK, EU and UN sanctions too.

International Visa Card is the one with a real price list — $5 virtual issuance, no maintenance fee, then Classic free, Pro $9.00/month, Max $19.00/month, with card use in USD free on all plans, foreign currency at “Visa exchange rate + 2% FX fee”, and deposits free. That 2% is exactly the kind of number you want in front of you before you travel. Its problem is the exclusion list, and it is long: Belarus, mainland China, North Korea, Cuba, India, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela, Vietnam, with FATF grey-list countries reviewed case by case. The rule follows residence or registration, not citizenship, and purchases are blocked in North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela.

UNi Card publishes the friendliest fee sentence in this whole comparison — “no annual fee or foreign transaction fee”, assets converted at live OTC rates, “no hidden exchange fees” — plus spend-to-earn rewards up to 3%. But it tells you almost nothing about who can get it or how you fund it, which is a version of hi’s problem in a different place.

The pattern across all four: every one of them is virtual, every one of them is a balance rather than a bank account, and none of them publishes daily and monthly limits. That is the category, not a verdict on hi. What differs is honesty about what is missing.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend the hi card to someone already inside hi, in a supported European country, spending in the same currency as their IBAN, who wants a Mastercard virtual number in the app and does not need cash, a physical card, or a published fee schedule to make the decision. For that person the card is fine and the surrounding product is the point.

I would not recommend it, and would suggest looking at the alternatives above, if any of these are true of you:

• You need cash. There is no physical card on offer and ATM terms are not disclosed.
• You spend in a currency other than your IBAN’s, or plan to. That is the case where the missing FX schedule turns into real money.
• You plan to live on crypto through the card. Coins, networks and conversion pricing are unstated, and sending on the wrong network is irreversible.
• You are outside Europe, or in the UK. The current country list is not published, and the UK withdrawal complaints are a live warning.
• You intend to hold a meaningful balance and want to know who holds it. The issuer is named only in press coverage, not by the card.
• You are choosing on price. There is no price to choose on.

The last one is my real answer. The 4.9 is not a verdict on whether the card works. It is a verdict on how much you are asked to take on faith. If you are already in, the faith is small — it is a virtual Mastercard on an account you hold. If you are not in, the faith is not small, and I would rather you spend it somewhere that publishes a number.

Frequently asked questions

What is the hi card?

It is a virtual Mastercard debit card issued inside the hi app, linked to a personal IBAN in EUR or GBP. You activate it in the app’s Card section once your address is verified, and it spends from your IBAN by default. It also has a secondary payment currency you can set in the app so you can spend crypto held at hi. Mastercard acceptance is the normal network figure — over 90 million merchants.

How does the hi card work?

Two funding paths. The default one draws on your own IBAN, so the card behaves like a prepaid balance and cannot overdraw. The second is crypto held at hi, one secondary currency at a time. On payment the card simply spends the balance, so if it runs out you top up or switch the secondary currency. No credit line, no interest, and a declined authorisation can leave a hold for up to seven days.

Is hi a bank?

Not on the evidence available to me. The card is issued under a programme rather than by a bank account in your own name, and starting data names hi Technology Limited while press coverage from 2022 names Moorwand Ltd as issuer with a Contis partnership announced. None of that comes from hi’s own pages, which are silent. What matters for your money: safeguarded e-money funds are not bank deposits and may not be covered by a deposit guarantee scheme.

How do I get the hi card?

You do not apply in the normal sense. You need an existing hi account with an IBAN, then you verify your address and activate the card in the app’s Card section. Documents required, minimum age and KYC tiers are not stated on the pages I could read. Eligibility by country is also not published officially; unofficial 2022 coverage said 25+ EEA countries plus the UK, with the UK later exiting.

Does the hi card require KYC?

Identity checks are part of the flow — the card activates once your address is verified. What documents are needed is not stated on the official pages, though the help centre has an identity verification collection. Expect standard due diligence: name, address, date of birth, nationality, ID documentation, a sanctions check and a PEP determination. Failing that, the institution must decline or end the relationship, which is why accounts freeze pending documents.

Is the hi card free?

Officially: unknown. Issuance fees, monthly fees, transaction fees and FX fees are all not stated, as are ATM fees and daily and monthly limits. Unofficial third-party review says no transaction, FX or issuance fees and free issuance for eligible users who complete KYC, while noting fees may apply later. One undated source is a snapshot, not a schedule.

Can I add the hi card to Apple Wallet or Google Pay?

Unconfirmed. Neither Apple Pay nor Google Pay is officially named on the card’s pages, and Trustpilot reviewers reported Google Pay not working during 2023. Since the card is virtual only, a mobile wallet is the practical route to paying in person — so treat this as the single thing to test yourself before relying on the card day to day.

Where can I use the hi card?

Anywhere Mastercard is accepted, in principle. In practice, some merchants decline prepaid or foreign-issued cards because they can look up the issuer country from the card number, and address verification services are generally unavailable for foreign-issued cards, which can cause declines. A virtual card issued through a European app can therefore read as foreign at a shop that expects a domestic card.

Is the hi card safe?

That depends on what you mean. It is a Mastercard virtual card with 3-D Secure and the usual app controls, and nothing in what I read suggests a security design failure. But no security or safeguarding details are published, no withdrawal terms are stated, and the company history carries real weight: Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX in November 2022, and WaveCrest’s European programmes were closed by Visa in 2018. Programmes do end, and users are left withdrawing balances.

Is the hi card worth it?

If you already hold a hi account in a supported European country and spend in your IBAN’s currency, the convenience is real and the answer is probably yes. If you are choosing between cards for the first time, the card gives you no fee schedule, no limits, no country list, no confirmed mobile wallet and no named rewards rate — which is why I score it 4.9 out of 10 and point you to the alternatives instead.

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