Card issuing

Euro cards for your business.

Virtual cards for your business and your agents, physical cards for your team, and cards for the businesses on your platform.

Physical cards free to order Top up by SEPA, to an IBAN of their own Freeze any card in one tap
Two kinds of card

Virtual in one call. Physical for people.

Virtual cards, for your business or your agents

Use one for your team’s software and subscriptions, or give an agent cards of its own. Each card is ready to spend as soon as it’s issued.

  • Standing cards for everyday spending
  • Single-use cards for one purchase, up to an amount you set
  • Lock a card to one merchant

Physical cards, for your team

One card per person, posted with tracking. They activate it when it arrives.

  • Standard, express or priority post, with tracking
  • Lost or stolen: the old card is blocked at once and a new one is posted
  • Damaged or expired: the old card works until the new one is activated
Spend limits and rules

Decide what every card can spend.

Set limits on each card, and apply a spend policy to one card or all of an agent’s cards at once. Every purchase is checked as the merchant charges.

  • Limits per purchase, per day, week or month, or all time. Every card has one, €500 a day unless you change it.
  • Allow kinds of merchant: software and cloud, advertising, travel, food and drink, office supplies, phone and internet, professional services, and postage and couriers.
  • Allow or block category codes, or restrict a card to certain countries or one merchant.
  • Every edit to a policy is a new version, and each purchase records the version that decided it.
Approvals

A person says yes to the big ones.

Purchases at or over your threshold wait for an owner or admin, as do purchases unusual for that agent: far more than it normally spends, a new merchant, or an hour it never buys in.

  • A push notification with Approve and Decline, plus email, the dashboard and a Slack message
  • Approve in the iPhone and iPad app with Face ID Beta
  • 24 hours to decide. An API key can never approve.
  • Agents can ask before they buy, so the merchant never sees a decline
Made for AI agents

Let agents buy, within what a person agreed.

Mandates

A person agrees once to what an agent may buy: the most per purchase, how many purchases and which merchants. Carts the agent signs within it go through without asking again.

Agent keys

Each agent signs with its own key. Its public keys are published, so anyone can check a signature, and revoking a key works at once.

Agent identity

Card tools over MCP

Twelve tools: create_agent_card, get_card_details, freeze_card, get_card_balance, request_approval, get_approval, list_card_authorizations, list_card_transactions, and list_topup_options, create_topup, list_topups and get_topup to top up the cards.

MCP server
Every purchase

See every purchase, and why it was allowed.

Every decision

Each attempt is kept, approved or declined, with the reason and the policy version that decided it.

A timeline

Asked, approved, authorised, captured and refunded, in order, for every purchase.

Disputes

Dispute a purchase for fraud, goods not received, a duplicate charge and more. If you win, you get the money back.

Freeze in one tap

Freeze a card in the app and unfreeze it with Face ID, or do both through the API.

Running a platform? Issue cards for your businesses.

With Tuppence Connect, each business on your platform gets cards through the same calls. Cards on Connect.

Top up the cards by SEPA.

Cards spend their own euro balance, kept apart from what customers pay you. Top it up by SEPA transfer from any business bank account to the card balance’s own IBAN, shown under Cards in the dashboard and by the API. A transfer takes about a day to arrive. Keep enough in the balance: a purchase it can’t cover is declined.

How to top up

Who issues the cards.

Tuppence cards in the eurozone are Visa commercial cards, for business use only, issued by Stripe Technology Europe Limited, an electronic money institution authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland. Tuppence is not a bank and does not issue the cards itself. The cards are governed by the card issuer’s terms, which you accept in the dashboard before your first card.

For developers

Issue a card in one call.

A card with limits, from the Node or Python SDK or plain HTTP. Add a spend policy or give a card to an agent when you need to. In test mode, top up the cards and make purchases without real money.

const tuppence = new Tuppence(process.env.TUPPENCE_SECRET_KEY!);

// A virtual card, ready to spend.
const card = await tuppence.cards.create({
  limits: { per_authorization: 5000, monthly: 50000 },
});

// Optional: the rules it spends under.
const policy = await tuppence.spendPolicies.create({
  name: "Software only",
  allowed_merchant_kinds: ["software"],
  approval_threshold: 10000, // a person says yes from €100
});
await tuppence.cards.update(card.id, { spend_policy: policy.id });

// Optional: a card of its own for an AI agent.
const agent = await tuppence.agents.create({ name: "Research agent" });
await tuppence.cards.create({ agent: agent.id });

Webhooks

  • card.created
  • card.shipped
  • approval.requested
  • approval.decided
  • card_transaction.created
  • card_dispute.closed

Test mode

  • Make a SEPA transfer arrive in the card balance
  • Make a purchase, then capture, reverse or refund it
  • Ship, deliver or return a physical card
Questions

Card issuing, answered.

Who can get cards?

Companies in the eurozone countries we serve, once they accept the card issuer's terms in the dashboard.

Do I need an AI agent to use cards?

No. A virtual card is your business's own unless you give it to an agent. Use it for your team's software, subscriptions and suppliers. Issue a card.

Can I see a card's number?

Yes. Owners and admins see any card's number, expiry and CVC in the dashboard or the app, after confirming it's them. A cardholder sees their own card and its PIN. The details show inside a secure frame and hide again after a minute.

Can my code or an agent read a card's number?

Yes, once an owner switches it on. A restricted key with card_details:read reads your virtual cards' numbers to pay at a checkout, and an agent that signs its requests sees only its own. Every read is logged and sent to your webhook. How it works.

Can an agent have a physical card?

No. Physical cards are for people, one each. Agents get virtual cards.

What currency do cards spend in?

Your account's own currency: pounds in the UK, dollars in the US, euros in the eurozone. They can still buy in other currencies.

What happens when someone approves a purchase?

The card can then be used at that merchant for 30 minutes, up to the approved amount plus 5% for tax or exchange rates.

Does a cardholder need a mobile number?

Yes. 3-D Secure codes for online purchases are texted to it. The card issuer’s 3-D Secure screens are in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish; in another language, they show in English.

What does it cost?

Physical cards are free to order. On purchases in another currency, the card network’s conversion is passed through. See pricing.

Who issues the cards?

Tuppence cards in the eurozone are Visa commercial cards, for business use only, issued by Stripe Technology Europe Limited, an electronic money institution authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland. Tuppence is not a bank and does not issue the cards itself. See who issues the cards.

Not yet. Card issuing is new. Not yet available:
  • Adding cards to Apple Pay and Google Pay
  • Approving from Slack (Slack tells you about a request today)

Card payments from 0.9%, paid out by SEPA.

Tuppence is coming to the eurozone. Join the waitlist, and we’ll email you once, when it opens.