A new fintech company which I was presented to earlier this year. Currensea Or Debit Card…
It has actually won a couple of awards over current months for what it does (offering you an inexpensive method to invest abroad) but what I like about is that it is easy as hell. This is a good thing.
is, effectively, a direct debit travel card. It is a Mastercard which sits in between you and your existing current account. There is nothing to top-up or prepay. You just invest as you would on a regular debit card and the cash is drawn from your current account– just without the normal 3% fee.
Oh, and is complimentary to look for, which likewise helps.
There are also some fascinating travel benefits if you pick a paid strategy, however the totally free plan works fine. You can use here.
There is a business model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and totally free or more affordable than the competition
include more and more functions which your existing consumers don’t actually desire or require
add charges, restrictions or charges to the feature that made individuals get your product in the first place, eliminating any competitive advantage
is currently still in Stage 1 of this procedure and will ideally stay there. Revolut, curve and monzo are already in Phase 3 …
is easy 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? Currensea Or Debit Card
It is a free direct debit card to use abroad and which immediately recharges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% charge.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) earn any airline company miles or points for using it.
Why would I wish to get a card?
If you have a credit card offering 0% foreign exchange fees, then you don’t require a card, unless you want totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
However, charge card which offer benefits and charge 0% FX charges are rare. The only ‘miles and points’ choices which provide a partial service 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 charges and do not wish to affect your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to use abroad
you want an item which allows you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals per month with no fees and just a very little FX mark-up (there is a little charge beyond �,� 500).
you desire a product for you, your adult kids, parents, partner or anybody else in your life who needs a simple, easy to understand payment card that will save them money when taking a trip.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I stated previously, a very 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, globally).
Your bank account bank instantly validates that you have enough cash in your account and authorises the deal.
The transaction goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending on the currency. adds a 0.5% cost if you have the free card. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no fees.
You get an automatic invest notification through the app, if you select 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 journal, I chose 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 expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight burglary that is just about to take place (often in a various language) while not telling you about the outrageous currency conversion costs occurring in the background. Do not get me began. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
In recent years a handful of great travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other terrific cards Currensea promises huge cost savings (85%) and an excellent app.
I believe the finest bit may 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 worry about running out of money and the additional action. However that does not indicate it is best.
In this Currensea review is the great, the bad, the ugly and the alternatives, 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, permitting us to make income 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 totally free amount on all our plans, complete information can be discovered on our rates plans.
Membership fees.
We charge a yearly subscription charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The membership charge likewise gets rid of all FX markup on transactions.
Interchange.
Every time you spend with your card we get a small % of the transaction, called interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. Currensea Or Debit Card