Review ·
Brighty Card review, the EU IBAN crypto card
Hands-on Brighty Mastercard review. Personal EU IBAN for invoicing, stablecoin yield on idle balance, 1% cashback, and why this is the cleanest EU freelancer card.
By Lea Moreau
Brighty solves a problem most crypto cards don’t even address: a freelancer or small-business owner in the EU needs a single account for euros, stablecoins, and card spend, with a personal IBAN for client invoicing. The cleanest alternative is currently a three-product setup (Wise for IBAN + Bybit for crypto + a separate cashback card). Brighty replaces all three with one app.
I write the compliance and regulatory coverage on comparecryptopay. I’ve held Brighty for six months as the primary banking interface for my own freelance consulting work. Here’s the honest read.
The product, in one paragraph
Brighty is an EU EMI-regulated payment platform offering: a personal EU IBAN in your name (for SEPA inbound and outbound payments), a stablecoin balance that earns yield while idle, on-app conversion between euros and supported stablecoins, and a bundled Mastercard for daily spend. Cashback at 1% applies to card spend regardless of tier. The whole flow is one app, one onboarding, one set of records.
For a Lisbon-based freelancer billing French and German clients, the workflow looks like this: clients pay your IBAN by SEPA, euros arrive in Brighty, you convert to USDC (idle yield-earning), you spend with the Mastercard when needed. One app, one tax record, no inter-bank fees.
What works exceptionally well
The EU IBAN is the killer feature. You can put it on invoices. Clients pay you by SEPA exactly as they’d pay any EU bank. The IBAN is in your name (not a sub-account of a corporate pool). For freelancers, this is the workflow that other crypto cards don’t even attempt to solve.
Stablecoin yield on idle balance. Money sitting between invoices earns. The headline rate has been 3-5% APY through 2025-26. Even at the lower end, this beats any euro-denominated checking account in the EU by an order of magnitude.
1% cashback on every spend, paid in EUR. No staking, no tier maths, no token volatility. The simplest cashback model in our coverage, and the cleanest accounting from a tax perspective.
Clean app and onboarding. KYC took 15 minutes. The app is well-designed in the way you’d expect from a team that came from neobank product backgrounds. Customer support is responsive in EU business hours.
What’s less great
EU only. UK residents, US residents, non-EU APAC residents are all locked out as of mid-2026. The international expansion narrative has been around for a while but the live product remains EU-only.
Custodial. Funds sit with Brighty. Standard EU EMI safeguarding applies, which is real but different from EU deposit insurance. For larger balances, the segregation is the safety net; understand how it works before parking significant sums.
Post-rebrand brand identity is younger. Brighty is the renamed Holyheld product. The team and licences are continuous; the consumer-facing brand is newer. For users who specifically track brand-age signals, this matters.
Yield rate is variable. The 3-5% range has held, but yields move with broader rates and the underlying source. Confirm the current rate before treating it as a planning input.
Daily use, six months in
Receiving client payments is the test that matters for freelancers. Six months in, every SEPA inbound from EU clients has landed correctly and within published timeframes (typically same-day for SEPA Instant, next-business-day for standard SEPA). The IBAN works as advertised.
The card spends normally on Mastercard rails. I’ve used it across Italy, Portugal, Spain, France with no merchant rejections. 0.95% conversion + 0.95% FX is mid-pack, neither best nor worst.
The conversion flow between euros and supported stablecoins (USDC primarily, USDT supported) is smooth. Spreads are reasonable; in-app conversion is faster than going through a separate exchange.
Tax reporting for Italy works through the standard CSV export. My commercialista handles the Brighty record alongside the rest of my crypto-tax filings without complications. See Crypto cards in Italy for the Italian framing.
Who should pick Brighty
EU freelancers and small-business owners who invoice in euros and want to consolidate banking, stablecoin yield, and card spend into one product. This is the strongest fit in our coverage for this audience.
EU residents who hold meaningful stablecoin balances and currently earn nothing on them. Brighty’s yield rate captures real value that idle Wise or Revolut balances don’t.
Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish freelancers specifically. The EU IBAN + crypto integration matches the way euro-denominated freelance work actually flows.
Who should skip Brighty
Non-EU residents. Unavailable.
Self-custody-first users. Brighty is fully custodial. If your priority is keeping funds out of any single party’s pool, look at MetaMask Card, Gnosis Pay, or Bleap.
High-volume spenders needing big limits. Brighty’s limits are mid-pack, not exceptional. Pair with a higher-limit card like RedotPay for occasional big-ticket spend.
The two-product alternative
If Brighty is unavailable to you or you specifically want decoupled products, the standard alternative is:
- Wise EU or similar neobank for the IBAN and SEPA flow
- Bybit Card for the crypto-funded spend and stablecoin cashback
This works but requires managing two accounts, two KYCs, two record sets, and FX between them. Brighty’s value is consolidation; if consolidation isn’t important to you, the two-product setup is fine.
Verdict
6.6 because the product genuinely solves a real problem for a real audience and works well day-to-day, but the EU-only limitation and the younger consumer brand identity prevent a higher score.
Pick Brighty if you’re an EU freelancer or small-business owner who wants one account for euros, stablecoins, and card spend. Skip Brighty if you’re outside the EU or you specifically value self-custody.
Background: Best crypto card for freelancers, Crypto cards in Italy, How to spend USDC.
Frequently asked questions
Is Brighty a real EU bank? +
Brighty operates as a regulated EU EMI (electronic money institution), which gives you a personal IBAN in your name with safeguarding requirements similar to traditional payment institutions. It is not a full bank in the deposit-insurance sense, but the IBAN is real and usable for invoicing and SEPA transfers exactly as you'd expect.
How does Brighty compare to Wise or Revolut? +
Wise and Revolut offer EU IBANs without crypto integration. Brighty bundles IBAN + stablecoin yield + crypto-funded card in one app. For freelancers who already work with crypto and want one product to replace 2-3, Brighty is the right pick. For users with no crypto exposure, Wise or Revolut serve the IBAN need without the crypto premium.
What yield does the idle stablecoin balance earn? +
The headline rate has been in the 3-5% APY range through 2025-26, but it is variable. Confirm the current rate on Brighty's app before depositing. The yield comes from regulated lending and money-market exposure; verify the source on the current fact sheet.
Can I use Brighty if I am not in the EU? +
No, as of mid-2026. UK, US, and APAC users need to look elsewhere. The product is built on EU EMI infrastructure and SEPA rails; international expansion has been signalled but not delivered.
What happened to Holyheld? +
Brighty is the rebranded successor to Holyheld. The underlying operator, licences, and product team continued; the consumer brand changed. Operational track record carries over but the consumer-facing brand identity is younger than the underlying entity.