CORRECTING and REPLACING Canadian Bitcoin Platform Shakepay Partners With Marqeta To Power Innovative New Card Offering

Shakepay customers will be able to sign up for a Marqeta-powered Visa* card, allowing them to spend money directly from their account.

MONTREAL--(BUSINESS WIRE)--First paragraph, first sentence of release dated April 21, 2021, should read: issued by Marqeta’s sponsoring financial institution Peoples Trust Company (instead of issued by Marqeta’s sponsoring financial institution People’s Bank).

The updated release reads:

CANADIAN BITCOIN PLATFORM SHAKEPAY PARTNERS WITH MARQETA TO POWER INNOVATIVE NEW CARD OFFERING

Shakepay customers will be able to sign up for a Marqeta-powered Visa* card, allowing them to spend money directly from their account.

Shakepay, a Montreal-based financial technology platform that allows Canadians to buy and sell digital currency and pay their friends, announced today that it has partnered with Marqeta, the global modern card issuing platform, to power the launch of a new Visa prepaid card for Shakepay customers, issued by Marqeta’s sponsoring financial institution Peoples Trust Company.

Shakepay was founded in 2015 and is a leading platform for buying and selling digital currencies in Canada. Shakepay reports facilitating more than $2 billion CAD in purchases and sales on its platform to date and serving more than 420,000 Canadians. According to Shakepay, it is one of the top 10 Canadian financial apps on Apple’s App Store and has seen 10x year-over-year growth. Shakepay’s multi-currency digital wallet allows its users to transact in Canadian dollars as well as Bitcoin and Ethereum and easily transfer balances and cash out. Its new prepaid card is a separate complementary product that will allow customers to spend Canadian dollars at physical and virtual merchants.

"As we looked at the best way to develop a prepaid card to complement the Shakepay wallet, and build out an excellent user experience, it became clear that Marqeta was the only card issuer capable of meeting our needs," said Shakepay CEO Jean Amiouny. "The openness and flexibility of Marqeta's card issuing platform enabled us to bring a completely new card product to the Canadian market, while innovating at speed and scale."

“Shakepay has a great DNA match with Marqeta. They bring a strong builder mindset that will be critical to delivering important innovations to the market,” said Salman Syed, SVP/GM North America at Marqeta. “This is a groundbreaking card product in the Canadian market, bridging the gap between digital currencies and the traditional point of sale, allowing cardholders to more easily monetize the value of their digital currency holdings.”

Founded in 2010, Marqeta is a global modern card issuing platform and supports some of the world’s leading innovators at scale, including Square, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Uber, Affirm, Instacart, and DoorDash, by providing advanced infrastructure and tools for building highly configurable payment solutions. It is enabled in 35 countries worldwide and at the end of 2020, more than 270 million cards have been issued through the Marqeta platform.

*Visa Int./Peoples Trust Company, Licensed User. Shakepay Visa Prepaid Card is issued by Peoples Trust Company pursuant to license by Visa Int.

About Marqeta

Marqeta is the modern card issuing platform empowering builders to bring the most innovative products to the world. Marqeta provides developers advanced infrastructure and tools for building highly configurable payment cards. With its open APIs, the Marqeta platform is designed for businesses who want to easily build tailored payment solutions to create best-in-class experiences and power new modes of money movement. Marqeta is headquartered in Oakland, California. For more information, visit www.marqeta.com, Twitter and LinkedIn.

About Shakepay

Shakepay is a Montreal-based technology company providing financial applications to create open access to building wealth. The platform enables Canadians from all walks of life—college students, retirees, and large investors—to buy and sell Bitcoin and make payments to friends and family. For more information, visit https://shakepay.com.