A new fintech company which I was presented to earlier this year. Age For Currensea Card…
It has won a few awards over current months for what it does (offering you an inexpensive way to invest abroad) however what I like about is that it is simple 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 merely spend as you would on a typical debit card and the money is drawn from your current account– just without the typical 3% cost.
Oh, and is totally free to get, which also helps.
There are likewise some fascinating travel benefits if you select a paid strategy, but the free plan works fine. You can use here.
There is a company design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have all followed:
launch by doing something well, and for free or more affordable than the competition
include increasingly more functions which your existing consumers don’t actually want or require
add charges, limitations or charges to the feature that made individuals get your item in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this procedure and will ideally stay there. Curve, monzo and revolut are already in Stage 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? Age For Currensea Card
It is a free direct debit card to use abroad and which automatically charges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a small 0.5% fee.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) earn any airline company miles or points for using it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% forex costs, then you don’t need a card, unless you desire totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Nevertheless, charge card which offer benefits and charge 0% FX costs are rare. The only ‘points and miles’ alternatives which offer a partial service are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX fees in the Euro zone.
IS possibly for you if:
you do not have a charge card offering 0% FX costs and do not want to impact your credit report by getting another charge card specifically to use abroad
you want a product which permits you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals monthly without any fees and just a minimal FX mark-up (there is a small charge beyond �,� 500).
you desire a product for you, your adult kids, parents, partner or anyone else in your life who needs an easy, easy to understand payment card that will save them cash when taking a trip.
How does operate in practice?
It is, as I said previously, a very basic procedure. You use your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in regional currency (any currency, globally).
Your bank account bank automatically validates that you have sufficient cash 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 complimentary card, includes a 0.5% fee. There are no charges if you have among their paid cards.
You get an automatic invest notice via the app, if you select to install it.
The cash is taken from your current account a few days later on.
Here is an example. With no foreign travel in the diary, I chose to sprinkle out and buy 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 practically to happen (typically in a different language) while not telling you about the outrageous currency conversion charges happening in the background. Do not get me started. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyway.
Fortunately recently a handful of great travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other great cards guarantees huge savings (85%) and a terrific app.
But I think the very best bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street savings account.
What this implies is you can spend cash you have in your existing current account with less fret about lacking cash and the additional step. But that does not mean it is best.
In this Currensea review is the excellent, the bad, the awful and the alternatives, so that you can decide.
FX markup.
While our premium strategies have no FX markup, we charge a small FX markup on our Necessary Plan of 0.5% per transaction, enabling us to make revenue from our Necessary Strategy 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 information can be discovered on our rates plans.
Subscription fees.
We charge an annual subscription cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The subscription fee also gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Every time you invest with your card we receive a little % of the deal, known as interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and will not be charged to you. Age For Currensea Card