A brand-new fintech company which I was introduced to earlier this year. Add Money To Currensea Card…
It has actually won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (using you a low-priced way to invest abroad) but what I like about is that it is easy as hell. This is a good thing.
is, efficiently, 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 just spend as you would on a normal debit card and the money is taken from your bank account– simply without the typical 3% charge.
Oh, and is free to obtain, which also assists.
There are also some fascinating travel benefits if you pick a paid strategy, but the complimentary strategy works fine. You can apply here.
There is a service design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have actually all followed:
launch by doing something well, and for free or cheaper than the competition
include increasingly more functions which your existing clients don’t really want or need
add constraints, charges or charges to the feature that made people get your item in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this procedure and will hopefully stay there. Monzo, revolut and curve are already in Stage 3 …
is easy 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? Add Money To Currensea Card
It is a complimentary direct debit card to use abroad and which immediately charges all purchases to your existing current account in Sterling, less a small 0.5% cost.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) earn any airline miles or points for using it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% foreign exchange charges, then you do not require a card, unless you desire totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Nevertheless, charge card which provide benefits and charge 0% FX costs are few and far between. The only ‘points and miles’ options which provide a partial option are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX costs in the Euro zone.
IS perhaps for you if:
you don’t have a credit card offering 0% FX fees and do not want to impact your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to use abroad
you want a product which enables you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals each month with no 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, moms and dads, partner or anyone else in your life who needs a basic, easy to understand payment card that will save them money when travelling.
How does operate in practice?
It is, as I said earlier, a really basic process. 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 automatically validates that you have sufficient 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. includes a 0.5% charge if you have the free card. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no costs.
You get an automated spend notification via the app, if you pick to install it.
The cash is taken from your bank account a few days later.
Here is an example. Without any foreign travel in the diary, I chose to sprinkle out and purchase 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:.
Converting pounds was expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight burglary that is almost to happen (often in a different language) while not telling you about the inflated currency conversion charges occurring in the background. Do not get me started. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyway.
Fortunately over the last few years a handful of excellent travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other great cards assures big savings (85%) and a terrific app.
I believe the finest bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street bank account.
What this indicates is you can spend money you have in your existing bank account with less worry about lacking cash and the additional action. That does not indicate it is perfect.
In this Currensea evaluation is the excellent, 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 Important Strategy of 0.5% per transaction, enabling us to make revenue from our Essential Plan whilst staying more affordable than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We likewise charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the totally free amount on all our plans, complete details can be discovered on our prices strategies.
Subscription costs.
We charge a yearly subscription fee of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The membership charge also removes all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Every time you spend with your card we get a small % of the deal, called interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and will not be credited you. Add Money To Currensea Card