A brand-new fintech business which I was introduced to earlier this year. Add Money To My Currensea Card…
It has won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (offering you an inexpensive method to invest abroad) but what I like about is that it is basic as hell. This is a good thing.
is, successfully, 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 simply spend as you would on a regular debit card and the money is taken from your current account– simply without the typical 3% fee.
Oh, and is free to apply for, which also assists.
There are also some interesting travel benefits if you select a paid plan, however the free plan works fine. You can use here.
There is a service design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and free of charge or less expensive than the competition
include increasingly more functions which your existing customers don’t really want or require
add charges, constraints or costs to the feature that made people get your item in the first place, getting rid of any competitive advantage
is currently still in Stage 1 of this procedure and will ideally remain there. Revolut, monzo and curve are already in Stage 3 …
is easy enough that it passes my ‘Can you explain it to your mate in the bar in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Add Money To My Currensea Card
It is a complimentary direct debit card to use abroad and which automatically charges all purchases to your existing current account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% fee.
That’s it.
You do not (yet …) earn any airline miles or points for using it.
Why would I wish to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% forex costs, then you do not require a card, unless you desire free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Nevertheless, credit cards which provide benefits and charge 0% FX costs are scarce. The only ‘points and miles’ choices which use a partial solution are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX fees 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 impact your credit report by getting another charge card specifically to use abroad
you want an item which permits you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals per month with no costs and just a very little FX mark-up (there is a little cost beyond �,� 500).
you want a product for you, your adult kids, parents, partner or anybody else in your life who needs an easy, easy to understand payment card that will conserve them money 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 regional currency (any currency, worldwide).
Your current account bank immediately confirms 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 on the currency. includes a 0.5% charge if you have the totally free card. There are no fees if you have one of their paid cards.
You get an automatic spend notification via 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 decided to splash out and buy 1,000 MeliaRewards points for EUR5.
This is what you see in the Currensea app, which reveals �,� 4.33 set up to leave my HSBC account a few days later on:.
Converting pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime break-in that is practically to take place (frequently in a different language) while not telling you about the inflated currency conversion charges happening in the background. Don’t get me began. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyway.
Thankfully recently a handful of excellent travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other great cards promises big savings (85%) and a terrific app.
But I believe the best bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street savings account.
What this means is you can invest money you have in your existing bank account with less stress over running out of money and the additional step. That does not suggest it is best.
In this Currensea evaluation is the great, the bad, the unsightly 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 Plan of 0.5% per deal, allowing us to make revenue from our Essential Strategy whilst staying more affordable than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the free amount on all our strategies, full information can be found on our pricing plans.
Subscription costs.
We charge a yearly subscription charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The membership fee also gets rid of all FX markup on transactions.
Interchange.
Each time you invest with your card we get a small % of the transaction, called interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be charged to you. Add Money To My Currensea Card