It appears to be like Bitpay, the whole article refers to a trusted third party who is processing the two parties.
You deposit money with a third party who transfers funds within their system rather than on Blockchain. There does not seem to be anything new from my point of view.
Bitcoin (deposit)----->Spedn app (processing & exchanging)-----> Market (cash out using paper money)
It's a third party, Flexa (similar to Bitpay), so Spnd app was built around the open Flexa network as an intermediary. So let's see how it goes, I read somewhere that Starbucks is also on the list (but obviously on selected locations only).