A new fintech company which I was introduced to previously this year. Currensea Gold Card Benefits…
It has won a few awards over current months for what it does (offering you an affordable way to invest abroad) but what I like about is that it is simple as hell. This is a good idea.
is, successfully, a direct debit travel card. You merely invest as you would on a normal debit card and the cash is taken from your existing account– simply without the normal 3% fee.
Oh, and is totally free to look for, which likewise helps.
There are also some interesting travel advantages if you pick a paid strategy, but the free plan works fine. You can use here.
There is a business design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have all followed:
launch by doing something well, and free of charge or more affordable than the competitors
include a growing number of features which your existing customers do not truly need or want
add costs, charges or restrictions to the feature that made people get your item in the first place, getting rid of any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this process and will hopefully remain there. Curve, Revolut and Monzo are already in Stage 3 …
is basic enough that it passes my ‘Can you discuss it to your mate in the bar in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Currensea Gold Card Benefits
It is a free direct debit card to use abroad and which automatically recharges all purchases to your existing current account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% charge.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) make any airline company miles or points for utilizing it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% foreign exchange fees, then you don’t need a card, unless you want free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
However, charge card which offer rewards and charge 0% FX charges are rare. The only ‘miles and points’ options which use a partial service are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX costs in the Euro zone.
IS potentially for you if:
you don’t have a charge card offering 0% FX fees and do not wish to impact your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to utilize abroad
you want an item 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 little fee beyond �,� 500).
you want an item for you, your adult children, moms and dads, partner or anybody else in your life who requires an easy, 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 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 current account bank automatically validates 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 upon 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 fees.
You get an automatic invest notification by means of the app, if you choose to install it.
The money is taken from your bank account a couple of days later on.
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 arranged to leave my HSBC account a couple of days later:.
However transforming pounds was expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime burglary that is almost to happen (often in a various language) while not telling you about the outrageous currency conversion costs happening in the background. Don’t get me started. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
In recent years a handful of fantastic travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other excellent cards Currensea guarantees big savings (85%) and a great app.
I believe the best bit might be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street bank account.
What this means is you can invest money you have in your existing current account with less worry about lacking cash and the additional step. That does not imply it is ideal.
In this Currensea evaluation is the good, 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 small FX markup on our Necessary Strategy of 0.5% per transaction, enabling us to make profits from our Vital Strategy whilst staying much cheaper 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 found on our prices plans.
Subscription charges.
We charge an annual subscription cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The membership fee likewise gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you invest with your card we get a small % of the deal, referred to as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be charged to you. Currensea Gold Card Benefits