A new fintech company which I was introduced to earlier this year. Is The Currensea Card Any Good…
It has won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (providing you an inexpensive method 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 just invest as you would on a typical debit card and the money is taken from your present account– simply without the typical 3% cost.
Oh, and is totally free to request, which also assists.
There are also some intriguing travel advantages if you pick a paid plan, but the totally free plan works fine. You can apply here.
There is a company design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have all followed:
launch by doing something well, and totally free or cheaper than the competitors
include more and more functions which your existing clients don’t truly desire or require
include fees, charges or restrictions to the feature that made people get your product in the first place, getting rid of any competitive advantage
is presently still in Phase 1 of this procedure and will ideally stay there. Revolut, monzo and curve are already in Stage 3 …
is simple enough that it passes my ‘Can you describe it to your mate in the club in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Is The Currensea Card Any Good
It is a totally free direct debit card to utilize abroad and which immediately recharges all purchases to your existing current account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% cost.
That’s it.
You do not (yet …) earn any airline company miles or points for utilizing it.
Why would I wish to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% foreign exchange charges, then you don’t require a card, unless you desire totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
Nevertheless, credit cards which use rewards and charge 0% FX charges are rare. The only ‘miles and points’ alternatives which offer a partial option are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX costs 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 particularly to utilize abroad
you desire an item which permits you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals monthly without any costs and just a very little FX mark-up (there is a little charge beyond �,� 500).
you want a product for you, your adult children, parents, partner or anyone else in your life who needs an easy, easy to understand payment card that will conserve them cash when travelling.
How does operate in practice?
It is, as I said earlier, a very basic procedure. 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 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. includes a 0.5% cost if you have the complimentary card. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no costs.
You get an automatic invest alert through the app, if you choose to install it.
The money is taken from your current account a couple of days later on.
Here is an example. Without any foreign travel in the diary, I decided 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 few days later:.
Transforming pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight robbery that is practically to occur (typically in a various language) while not telling you about the expensive currency conversion costs taking place in the background. Don’t get me started. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyway.
In current years a handful of terrific travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other terrific cards Currensea promises big savings (85%) and a terrific app.
I think the finest bit may be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street bank account.
What this implies is you can spend cash you have in your existing current account with less worry about lacking money and the additional action. That does not mean it is perfect.
In this Currensea evaluation is the great, the bad, the awful and the alternatives, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium plans have no FX markup, we charge a small FX markup on our Necessary Strategy of 0.5% per deal, enabling us to make earnings from our Important Strategy whilst remaining much cheaper than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM use over the complimentary quantity on all our plans, full details can be discovered on our prices strategies.
Membership fees.
We charge an annual membership charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The membership cost also gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Every time you spend with your card we get a little % of the deal, called interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. Is The Currensea Card Any Good