A brand-new fintech company which I was presented to earlier this year. Currensea Card Invalid…
It has actually won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (providing you a low-cost way 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 between you and your existing bank account. There is absolutely nothing to top-up or prepay. You simply invest as you would on a normal debit card and the cash is taken from your bank account– simply without the normal 3% charge.
Oh, and is totally free to apply for, which also assists.
There are likewise some interesting travel advantages if you select a paid plan, but the totally free strategy works fine. You can use here.
There is a business design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have actually all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and for free or more affordable than the competitors
add more and more functions which your existing customers don’t actually want or require
include charges, costs or constraints to the function that made people get your product in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is presently still in Phase 1 of this procedure and will ideally remain there. Curve, monzo and revolut 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 Card Invalid
It is a complimentary direct debit card to use abroad and which automatically recharges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a little 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 charge card offering 0% foreign exchange costs, then you do not need a card, unless you want totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
Credit cards which use benefits and charge 0% FX costs are few and far between. The only ‘miles and points’ options which use a partial solution are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX charges in the Euro zone.
IS perhaps for you if:
you don’t have a charge card offering 0% FX charges and do not want to impact your credit report by getting another charge card specifically to use abroad
you desire a product which permits you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals per month without any charges and just a minimal FX mark-up (there is a little charge beyond �,� 500).
you desire an item for you, your adult kids, parents, partner or anybody else in your life who requires a simple, 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, an extremely basic process. You utilize your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in regional currency (any currency, globally).
Your current account bank automatically validates that you have adequate cash in your account and authorises the deal.
The deal goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending upon the currency. adds a 0.5% fee if you have the totally free card. There are no fees if you have one of their paid cards.
You get an automated invest notification by means of the app, if you pick to install it.
The cash is drawn from your bank account a couple of days later on.
Here is an example. With no 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 scheduled to leave my HSBC account a couple of days later:.
But converting pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime break-in that is almost to take place (typically in a various language) while not telling you about the outrageous currency conversion charges taking place in the background. Don’t get me started. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyway.
Thankfully over the last few years a handful of great travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other great cards assures huge cost savings (85%) and a great app.
However 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 money you have in your existing current account with less worry about lacking money and the extra step. However that does not imply it is ideal.
In this Currensea evaluation is the great, the bad, the ugly 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 transaction, allowing us to make earnings from our Essential Plan whilst remaining much cheaper than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM use over the totally free amount on all our strategies, complete information can be found on our pricing strategies.
Membership charges.
We charge an annual membership cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The subscription charge also eliminates all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Every time you spend with your card we receive a small % of the transaction, referred to as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. Currensea Card Invalid