Cashback is passe. These fintechs offer crypto, digital gold as card rewards

livemint.com:

Mint found out about two fintechs—ANQ Finance and GoSats.io— that offer digital gold and bitcoin as rewards for any spending done via their prepaid cards. Both the fintechs suggested that traditional card cashbacks are in the form of reward points which need to be accumulated for benefits that , however, depreciate over time. And it happens frequently whenever card issuers go in for devaluations of their popular cards, as in the case of Axis Magnus or HDFC Infinia.

However, both digital gold and crypto do not have well defined regulations in India. As per the stance taken by market regulator Sebi, digital gold is still an unregulated instrument. Last year in August, NSE asked all its exchange members to stop selling digital gold because it didn’t consider that as a security.

Crypto, although under the purview of Sebi, is still not considered as a legal tender in India and the regulator generally has a cautious stance against it. "Crypto as a cashback is a tricky proposition as you will have users who are gaining crypto rewards but don't understand anything about how the asset class works and what to do with them" said Dipika Jaikishan, co-founder of GetBasis, a prepaid fintech card with focus on women. So, can offering digital assets as a reward on a regulated structure (prepaid instruments, or PPI) be considered legal? Both the fintechs say they are not considered as regulated entities but work with an existing PPI licence holder and have met all due compliances by them.