Overseas crypto exchanges expand card-based payments in South Korea

Binance Holdings Ltd., OKX, and Crypto.com are pushing deeper into South Korea by issuing payment cards tied to users’ exchange balances. For high-risk operators, the point is simple: cards can route crypto value into everyday spending without using the prohibited “buy coins with a payment card” path.

1. Binance Holdings Ltd., OKX, and Crypto.com each operate debit cards that let users pay for goods with virtual assets held on the exchanges, including dollar stablecoins such as USDT and USDC. Binance Holdings Ltd. and OKX run on Mastercard, while Crypto.com uses Visa.
2. The cards are positioned as low-friction acquisition tools. Binance Holdings Ltd. and OKX waive annual fees, and all three offer cashback paid in USDC on the 10th of the following month. Binance Holdings Ltd. uses a tiered cashback schedule: 1% for purchases under $100, 1.5% for $100 to under $500, 2% for $500 to under $1,000, and 3% for $1,000 and up. OKX advertises up to 2%, and Crypto.com up to 5%.
3. Visa and Mastercard each have 130 million and 90 million merchants worldwide, respectively, which gives these cards immediate acceptance at the point of sale. In practice, the cards work with Apple Pay, so they can be used at convenience stores, cafes, and big-box retailers that support near field communication (NFC).
4. Users must complete Know Your Customer (KYC) verification to get the cards. That matters for PSPs and acquirers because the product is not an anonymous crypto-to-cash workaround; it is a card product sitting on top of an exchange account with verified users.
5. South Korea’s 2024 amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Specialized Credit Finance Business Act prohibits buying coins with payment cards at overseas virtual asset exchanges, citing capital outflows and money laundering. The three exchange cards are structured to spend coins in the real economy instead, so the article says they do not violate that rule. At the same time, they are not licensed financial services in Korea, so users do not have Korean-law protection if something goes wrong.

The broader play here is not subtle: global virtual asset exchanges want to become all-in-one financial platforms, with trading, custody, tokenized stocks, payments, cards, and savings under one roof. For domestic virtual asset exchanges in Korea, everything other than spot coin transactions is illegal under Korean law, which leaves overseas players with a wider product menu and local players with a much narrower one.