A new fintech business which I was presented to earlier this year. Can You Use Currensea Card In South Africa…
It has actually won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (providing you a low-priced method to spend abroad) however what I like about is that it is easy as hell. This is a good thing.
is, effectively, a direct debit travel card. It is a Mastercard which sits in between you and your existing bank account. There is absolutely nothing to top-up or prepay. You just invest as you would on a normal debit card and the money is taken from your bank account– just without the typical 3% charge.
Oh, and is complimentary to request, which likewise assists.
There are also some interesting travel advantages if you pick a paid plan, however the complimentary strategy works fine. You can apply here.
There is a service model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and totally free or cheaper than the competition
add a growing number of functions which your existing customers don’t actually require or desire
include constraints, charges or charges to the feature that made individuals get your product in the first place, eliminating any competitive advantage
is currently still in Phase 1 of this process and will ideally remain there. Revolut, monzo and curve are already in Phase 3 …
is easy enough that it passes my ‘Can you explain it to your mate in the club in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Can You Use Currensea Card In South Africa
It is a complimentary direct debit card to use abroad and which automatically recharges all purchases to your existing current account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% fee.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) earn any airline company miles or points for utilizing it.
Why would I wish to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% forex costs, then you do not need a card, unless you desire totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Credit cards which use rewards and charge 0% FX costs are few and far in between. The only ‘points and miles’ choices which offer a partial option are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX charges in the Euro zone.
IS possibly for you if:
you don’t have a charge card offering 0% FX costs and do not want to impact your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to utilize abroad
you want an item which enables you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals each month without any costs and just a very little FX mark-up (there is a small cost beyond �,� 500).
you want an item for you, your adult kids, parents, partner or anyone else in your life who needs a basic, easy to understand payment card that will conserve them money when travelling.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I said earlier, a very simple process. You use your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in local currency (any currency, globally).
Your current account bank instantly validates that you have enough cash in your account and authorises the deal.
The transaction goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending upon the currency. If you have the totally free card, includes a 0.5% charge. There are no fees if you have among their paid cards.
You get an automated invest notification via the app, if you choose to install it.
The cash is drawn from your current account a couple of days later.
Here is an example. Without any foreign travel in the diary, I chose to sprinkle out and buy 1,000 MeliaRewards points for EUR5.
This is what you see in the Currensea app, which shows �,� 4.33 set up to leave my HSBC account a few days later:.
Transforming pounds was expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime break-in that is almost to occur (frequently in a different language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion fees happening in the background. Do not get me started. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyway.
In current years a handful of excellent travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other great cards Currensea guarantees big cost savings (85%) and an excellent app.
However I think the best bit might be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street bank account.
What this suggests is you can spend money you have in your existing current account with less worry about running out of cash and the extra step. That does not mean it is perfect.
In this Currensea evaluation is the excellent, the bad, the unsightly and the alternatives, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium strategies have no FX markup, we charge a nominal FX markup on our Important Strategy of 0.5% per deal, permitting us to make earnings from our Important Strategy whilst staying more affordable than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the free quantity on all our plans, full details can be discovered on our prices plans.
Subscription charges.
We charge an annual membership fee of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The subscription charge likewise gets rid of all FX markup on transactions.
Interchange.
Whenever you spend with your card we receive a little % of the transaction, called interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and will not be charged to you. Can You Use Currensea Card In South Africa