A new fintech company which I was introduced to previously this year. Is There A Fee For Currensea Card…
It has actually won a couple of awards over current months for what it does (using you an affordable way to spend abroad) however what I like about is that it is easy as hell. This is an advantage.
is, effectively, 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 spend as you would on a normal debit card and the money is taken from your current account– just without the normal 3% charge.
Oh, and is totally free to look for, which likewise assists.
There are also some fascinating travel advantages if you choose a paid plan, but the totally free strategy works fine. You can use 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 free of charge or less expensive than the competitors
add more and more features which your existing consumers do not truly desire or need
include restrictions, charges or charges to the feature that made individuals get your item in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is currently still in Phase 1 of this process and will hopefully stay there. Revolut, monzo and curve are currently in Stage 3 …
is easy enough that it passes my ‘Can you discuss it to your mate in the pub in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Is There A Fee For Currensea Card
It is a totally free direct debit card to utilize abroad and which immediately charges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a little 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 fees, then you don’t need a card, unless you want free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
However, charge card which use rewards and charge 0% FX charges are rare. The only ‘miles and points’ options which use a partial solution are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX costs in the Euro zone.
IS possibly for you if:
you do not have a charge card offering 0% FX costs and do not wish to impact your credit report by getting another credit card particularly to use abroad
you desire a product which enables you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals each month without any charges and only a very little FX mark-up (there is a small charge beyond �,� 500).
you desire a product for you, your adult children, parents, partner or anyone else in your life who requires an easy, easy to understand payment card that will save them cash when taking a trip.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I said earlier, a very simple process. You use your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in local currency (any currency, internationally).
Your current account bank immediately verifies that you have sufficient money in your account and authorises the transaction.
The deal goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending upon the currency. If you have the complimentary card, includes a 0.5% fee. There are no charges if you have among their paid cards.
You get an automated spend alert by means of the app, if you pick to install it.
The money is drawn from your current account a few days later.
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 shows �,� 4.33 scheduled to leave my HSBC account a couple of days later:.
However converting pounds was expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime burglary that is practically to take place (typically in a various language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion charges happening in the background. Do not get me started. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
In recent years a handful of excellent travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other great cards Currensea assures big savings (85%) and a great app.
But I believe the best bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street bank account.
What this indicates is you can spend cash you have in your existing bank account with less fret about running out of money and the extra action. That does not mean it is ideal.
In this Currensea review is the great, the bad, the ugly and the alternatives, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium strategies have no FX markup, we charge a nominal FX markup on our Essential Strategy of 0.5% per transaction, enabling us to make revenue from our Important Strategy whilst staying much cheaper than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the totally free amount on all our plans, complete details can be found on our rates plans.
Subscription costs.
We charge an annual membership cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The membership fee also gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Every time you spend with your card we receive a small % of the transaction, known as interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. Is There A Fee For Currensea Card