A brand-new fintech company which I was introduced to earlier this year. Currensea Card Suspended Google Pay…
It has won a few awards over recent months for what it does (offering you a low-cost way to invest abroad) however what I like about is that it is basic as hell. This is an advantage.
is, successfully, a direct debit travel card. You simply invest as you would on a typical debit card and the money is taken from your present account– simply without the typical 3% cost.
Oh, and is totally free to obtain, which likewise helps.
There are also some interesting travel advantages if you pick a paid strategy, but the free plan works fine. You can use here.
There is an organization model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and free of charge or more affordable than the competition
include more and more features which your existing clients don’t really desire or require
add restrictions, charges or charges to the feature that made individuals get your product in the first place, eliminating any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this procedure and will ideally stay there. Curve, Revolut and Monzo are currently in Phase 3 …
is basic enough that it passes my ‘Can you describe it to your mate in the club in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Currensea Card Suspended Google Pay
It is a complimentary direct debit card to utilize abroad and which instantly recharges all purchases to your existing current account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% cost.
That’s it.
You do not (yet …) earn any airline miles or points for using it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a credit card offering 0% foreign exchange fees, then you do not require a card, unless you desire totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
However, charge card which use benefits and charge 0% FX charges are rare. The only ‘miles and points’ choices which use a partial option are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX fees in the Euro zone.
IS possibly for you if:
you don’t have a credit card offering 0% FX charges and do not wish to impact your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to use abroad
you want a product which allows you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals per month with no charges and just a minimal FX mark-up (there is a little charge beyond �,� 500).
you desire an item for you, your adult kids, moms and dads, partner or anybody else in your life who requires an easy, easy to understand payment card that will save them cash when travelling.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I stated previously, an extremely basic procedure. You utilize your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in local currency (any currency, internationally).
Your current account bank immediately validates that you have adequate cash in your account and authorises the transaction.
The deal goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending upon the currency. If you have the free card, adds a 0.5% fee. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no charges.
You get an automatic invest alert via the app, if you select to install it.
The money is drawn from your current account a few days later on.
Here is an example. With no 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 reveals �,� 4.33 arranged to leave my HSBC account a few days later:.
However converting pounds was expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight robbery that is just about to occur (often in a different language) while not telling you about the expensive currency conversion costs happening in the background. Do not get me started. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyway.
Thankfully in recent years a handful of excellent travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other excellent cards promises big savings (85%) and an excellent app.
I think the finest bit might be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street bank account.
What this means is you can spend money you have in your existing current account with less fret about running out of cash and the additional action. But that does not mean it is ideal.
In this Currensea review is the good, the bad, the ugly and the alternatives, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium strategies have no FX markup, we charge a small FX markup on our Essential Plan of 0.5% per deal, allowing us to make profits from our Important Strategy whilst remaining more affordable than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the free quantity on all our strategies, complete information can be found on our prices plans.
Subscription charges.
We charge a yearly subscription fee of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The membership charge also gets rid of all FX markup on transactions.
Interchange.
Each time you spend with your card we get a small % of the deal, referred to as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be charged to you. Currensea Card Suspended Google Pay