A brand-new fintech company which I was presented to earlier this year. Seedrs Currensea…
It has actually won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (providing you a low-cost method to spend abroad) but what I like about is that it is basic as hell. This is a good idea.
is, efficiently, 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 merely spend as you would on a normal debit card and the money is taken from your bank account– simply without the normal 3% cost.
Oh, and is free to apply for, which likewise helps.
There are likewise some interesting travel benefits if you choose a paid plan, but the free plan works fine. You can use here.
There is a service model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have all followed:
launch by doing something well, and free of charge or more affordable than the competition
add increasingly more functions which your existing clients do not truly want or need
add charges, charges or constraints to the feature that made people get your product in the first place, getting rid of any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this procedure and will hopefully remain there. Monzo, revolut and curve are already in Phase 3 …
is easy enough that it passes my ‘Can you discuss it to your mate in the pub in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Seedrs Currensea
It is a free direct debit card to use abroad and which automatically recharges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a small 0.5% cost.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) earn any airline miles or points for utilizing it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% foreign exchange costs, then you don’t need a card, unless you desire free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Nevertheless, charge card which provide benefits and charge 0% FX fees are few and far between. The only ‘miles and points’ alternatives which provide a partial service are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX charges in the Euro zone.
IS potentially for you if:
you don’t have a charge card offering 0% FX costs and do not wish to affect your credit report by getting another charge card specifically to use abroad
you desire a product which permits you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals monthly with no charges and only a minimal FX mark-up (there is a little cost beyond �,� 500).
you want an item for you, your adult kids, parents, partner or anyone else in your life who requires a simple, easy to understand payment card that will save them cash when travelling.
How does operate in practice?
It is, as I said earlier, an extremely easy procedure. You utilize your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in local currency (any currency, worldwide).
Your current account bank immediately verifies that you have enough money in your account and authorises the deal.
The deal goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending on the currency. adds a 0.5% charge if you have the free card. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no fees.
You get an automated spend notification via the app, if you select 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 reveals �,� 4.33 scheduled to leave my HSBC account a few days later on:.
But transforming pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime break-in that is practically to take place (often in a various language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion costs occurring in the background. Do not get me began. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
In current years a handful of fantastic travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other great cards Currensea promises huge cost savings (85%) and an excellent app.
But I believe the very best bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street bank account.
What this means is you can invest money you have in your existing current account with less fret about running out of cash and the extra step. 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 decide.
FX markup.
While our premium strategies have no FX markup, we charge a nominal FX markup on our Necessary Strategy of 0.5% per transaction, enabling us to make revenue from our Important Strategy whilst remaining more affordable than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We likewise charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the totally free quantity on all our plans, complete details can be found on our prices plans.
Subscription costs.
We charge an annual subscription fee of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The subscription charge likewise eliminates all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you spend with your card we get a little % of the transaction, known as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be credited you. Seedrs Currensea