A brand-new fintech company which I was presented to earlier this year. Who Owns Currensea Card…
It has won a couple of awards over current months for what it does (providing you a low-priced method to invest abroad) however what I like about is that it is basic as hell. This is a good thing.
is, efficiently, a direct debit travel card. It is a Mastercard which sits between you and your existing current account. There is nothing to top-up or prepay. You merely invest as you would on a normal debit card and the money is drawn from your current account– simply without the usual 3% fee.
Oh, and is free to make an application for, which likewise helps.
There are likewise some fascinating travel advantages if you pick a paid plan, however the totally free plan works fine. You can apply here.
There is a business model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and free of charge or less expensive than the competition
include more and more functions which your existing clients do not really require or desire
include costs, restrictions or charges to the function that made individuals get your product in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is currently still in Stage 1 of this process and will hopefully stay there. Monzo, curve and revolut are already in Phase 3 …
is simple enough that it passes my ‘Can you describe it to your mate in the pub in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Who Owns Currensea Card
It is a free direct debit card to utilize abroad and which immediately recharges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% fee.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) make any airline miles or points for utilizing it.
Why would I wish to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% forex charges, then you don’t need a card, unless you want totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
However, charge card which offer rewards and charge 0% FX costs are scarce. The only ‘points and miles’ choices which use a partial option are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX charges in the Euro zone.
IS perhaps for you if:
you do not have a credit card offering 0% FX costs and do not want to affect your credit report by getting another credit card particularly to utilize abroad
you want a product which enables you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals monthly without any charges and just a minimal FX mark-up (there is a little fee beyond �,� 500).
you desire a product for you, your adult kids, parents, partner or anybody else in your life who requires a basic, easy to understand payment card that will save them money when travelling.
How does operate in practice?
It is, as I said previously, an extremely simple procedure. 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 bank account bank immediately verifies that you have adequate cash in your account and authorises the transaction.
The transaction goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending upon the currency. If you have the totally free card, adds a 0.5% charge. There are no costs if you have one of their paid cards.
You get an automatic spend alert via the app, if you pick to install it.
The cash is drawn from your current account a couple of days later on.
Here is an example. Without any foreign travel in the journal, 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 on:.
However transforming pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight break-in that is just about to happen (frequently in a various language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion fees occurring in the background. Don’t get me began. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
Fortunately recently a handful of terrific travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other terrific cards guarantees big cost savings (85%) and an excellent app.
I think the finest bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street bank account.
What this means is you can spend money you have in your existing current account with less worry about running out of money and the extra step. But that does not imply it is best.
In this Currensea review is the great, the bad, the unsightly and the options, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium plans have no FX markup, we charge a nominal FX markup on our Vital Plan of 0.5% per deal, enabling us to make revenue from our Necessary Plan whilst staying more affordable than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We likewise charge an FX markup on ATM use over the free amount on all our strategies, complete details can be found on our pricing strategies.
Membership fees.
We charge a yearly membership charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The membership charge also eliminates all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Whenever you spend with your card we get a small % of the deal, called interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be charged to you. Who Owns Currensea Card