A brand-new fintech business which I was presented to earlier this year. Can I Buy Foreign Currency With The Currensea Card…
It has won a few awards over current months for what it does (offering you an affordable way to spend abroad) but what I like about is that it is easy as hell. This is an advantage.
is, efficiently, a direct debit travel card. It is a Mastercard which sits in between you and your existing current account. There is absolutely nothing to top-up or prepay. You just spend as you would on a normal debit card and the cash is taken from your current account– just without the typical 3% cost.
Oh, and is totally free to look for, which also helps.
There are also some intriguing travel advantages if you pick a paid plan, however the totally free strategy works fine. You can apply here.
There is a company design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have actually all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and free of charge or more affordable than the competition
add more and more functions which your existing consumers do not actually want or require
add fees, restrictions or charges to the feature that made people get your product in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this process and will ideally stay there. Monzo, revolut and curve are already in Stage 3 …
is basic enough that it passes my ‘Can you explain it to your mate in the club in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Can I Buy Foreign Currency With The Currensea Card
It is a totally free direct debit card to use abroad and which instantly charges all purchases to your existing current account in Sterling, less a small 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% forex costs, then you don’t require a card, unless you desire free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
Nevertheless, charge card which offer benefits and charge 0% FX fees are scarce. The only ‘miles and points’ alternatives which provide a partial service are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX costs in the Euro zone.
IS possibly for you if:
you don’t have a charge card offering 0% FX charges and do not wish to impact your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to use abroad
you desire an item which allows you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals per month with no charges and only a minimal FX mark-up (there is a little cost beyond �,� 500).
you desire a product for you, your adult children, parents, partner or anyone else in your life who needs an easy, 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 easy process. You utilize your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in regional currency (any currency, worldwide).
Your bank account bank immediately confirms 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. If you have the totally free card, adds a 0.5% charge. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no costs.
You get an automatic invest notification via the app, if you pick to install it.
The money is taken from your current account a few days later on.
Here is an example. Without any foreign travel in the diary, I decided to splash 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 couple of days later on:.
Transforming pounds was expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight robbery that is almost to happen (typically in a different language) while not telling you about the expensive currency conversion charges happening in the background. Don’t get me started. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
Luckily recently a handful of great travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other fantastic cards guarantees huge savings (85%) and a great app.
However I think the very best bit might be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street savings account.
What this indicates is you can spend cash you have in your existing current account with less fret about running out of cash and the extra action. But that does not suggest it is perfect.
In this Currensea review is the great, the bad, the unsightly and the alternatives, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium plans have no FX markup, we charge a nominal FX markup on our Necessary Strategy of 0.5% per deal, permitting us to make earnings from our Necessary Plan whilst staying more affordable than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the free amount on all our plans, full information can be discovered on our pricing strategies.
Membership costs.
We charge a yearly subscription fee of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The subscription fee also removes all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you invest with your card we receive a little % of the deal, called interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be credited you. Can I Buy Foreign Currency With The Currensea Card