A new fintech company which I was presented to previously this year. How Many Names Can You Put On A Currensea Card…
It has actually won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (offering you a low-cost method to spend abroad) however what I like about is that it is easy as hell. This is a good thing.
is, successfully, a direct debit travel card. It is a Mastercard which sits in between you and your existing bank account. There is nothing to top-up or prepay. You merely invest as you would on a regular debit card and the money is drawn from your current account– just without the normal 3% charge.
Oh, and is complimentary to get, which also helps.
There are likewise some fascinating travel benefits if you pick a paid plan, however the free plan works fine. You can use here.
There is a business design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have actually all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and for free or more affordable than the competition
add increasingly more functions which your existing consumers don’t actually want or require
include constraints, charges or fees to the function that made people get your item in the first place, eliminating any competitive advantage
is presently still in Phase 1 of this process and will ideally remain there. Revolut, curve and monzo are already in Stage 3 …
is simple enough that it passes my ‘Can you explain it to your mate in the bar in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? How Many Names Can You Put On A Currensea Card
It is a totally free direct debit card to use abroad and which immediately recharges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% cost.
That’s it.
You do not (yet …) earn any airline company miles or points for using it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% forex costs, then you do not need a card, unless you want complimentary ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Nevertheless, charge card which provide rewards and charge 0% FX fees are few and far between. The only ‘miles and points’ alternatives which use a partial option are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX fees in the Euro zone.
IS perhaps for you if:
you don’t have a credit card offering 0% FX costs and do not want to impact your credit report by getting another credit card specifically to use abroad
you want a product which enables you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals each month without any charges and just a minimal FX mark-up (there is a small fee beyond �,� 500).
you desire a product for you, your adult kids, moms and dads, partner or anybody else in your life who needs an easy, easy to understand payment card that will conserve them money when travelling.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I stated earlier, an extremely basic procedure. You use 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 instantly confirms that you have enough cash in your account and authorises the transaction.
The transaction goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending on the currency. includes a 0.5% cost if you have the free card. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no costs.
You get an automatic spend notification through the app, if you choose to install it.
The money is taken from your current account a few days later.
Here is an example. With no foreign travel in the diary, I decided to splash 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 practically to happen (typically in a different language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion charges happening in the background. Don’t get me began. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
In recent years a handful of excellent travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other excellent cards Currensea promises huge cost savings (85%) and an excellent app.
I think the best bit might be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street bank account.
What this implies is you can invest money you have in your existing bank account with less fret about running out of money and the extra action. But that does not imply it is best.
In this Currensea evaluation is the great, the bad, the ugly and the options, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium plans have no FX markup, we charge a small FX markup on our Important Strategy of 0.5% per deal, enabling us to make revenue from our Important Strategy whilst staying more affordable than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM use over the free quantity on all our strategies, complete details can be found on our rates strategies.
Membership charges.
We charge a yearly membership fee of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The subscription charge also gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you invest with your card we get a little % of the transaction, referred to as interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and won’t be credited you. How Many Names Can You Put On A Currensea Card