A while later, I happened to come across a “partner” that ships the cards to South Africa. Transferred my $30 deposit, entered my info for the application, and shortly thereafter received a response to my earlier support query that they notice I did after all manage to apply for a card. A few days later the application was refused without reason (for a debit card?). I hope I can get that deposit back!

All in all, I find their business model opaque, and am sceptical about how well they will be able to gain traction in their target markets.

I do like that they’re leveraging the ACH system in the U.S. to handle payments. That’s great. But to this observer, the future of global payments rests with he who can stitch together some version of a global ACH system. My money is with VISA, and even they have a long way to go.

May be since it’s worldwide, something useful here?

Who’s gonna eat the cost of doing this for all those 13 yr. olds???

Also, Paypal’s reasoning for verifying bank info is to make sure people aren’t setting up a bunch of random accounts in case they need to reverse charge something or whatnot. I’d never use this service to buy good or accept money online – there doesn’t seem to be any protection. (And debit cards lack the protection that credit cards get).