A brand-new fintech business which I was presented to previously this year. Can I Top Up My Currensea Card At Post Office…
It has won a few awards over recent months for what it does (using you an affordable method to invest abroad) however what I like about is that it is simple as hell. This is a good thing.
is, successfully, a direct debit travel card. You simply spend as you would on a normal debit card and the money is taken from your existing account– just without the typical 3% charge.
Oh, and is free to apply for, which also helps.
There are also some intriguing travel benefits if you select a paid plan, however the totally free strategy works fine. You can use here.
There is an organization model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have all followed:
launch by doing something well, and free of charge or less expensive than the competition
add more and more features which your existing customers do not actually want or need
include constraints, costs or charges to the function that made people get your product in the first place, getting rid of any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this process and will ideally stay there. Revolut, curve and monzo are currently in Stage 3 …
is easy enough that it passes my ‘Can you explain it to your mate in the pub in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Can I Top Up My Currensea Card At Post Office
It is a complimentary direct debit card to use abroad and which instantly recharges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a small 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 costs, then you do not require a card, unless you desire complimentary ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
Nevertheless, charge card which offer rewards and charge 0% FX charges are few and far between. The only ‘points and miles’ choices 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 do not have a credit card offering 0% FX costs and do not wish to impact your credit report by getting another charge card specifically to use abroad
you desire a product which enables you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals per month with no costs and only a very little FX mark-up (there is a small cost beyond �,� 500).
you want a product for you, your adult kids, moms and dads, partner or anybody else in your life who requires an easy, easy to understand payment card that will save them money when taking a trip.
How does operate in practice?
It is, as I said previously, an extremely 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, globally).
Your current account bank instantly 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 upon the currency. adds a 0.5% fee if you have the free card. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no charges.
You get an automatic spend notice by means of the app, if you select to install it.
The money is drawn from your bank account a couple of days later.
Here is an example. With no foreign travel in the journal, I chose to splash out and purchase 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:.
Transforming pounds was expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime burglary that is almost to take place (frequently in a different language) while not telling you about the inflated currency conversion costs taking place in the background. Do not get me started. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyway.
In recent years a handful of great travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other terrific cards Currensea guarantees big cost 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 means is you can invest money you have in your existing current account with less worry about running out of cash and the extra action. However that does not suggest it is perfect.
In this Currensea evaluation is the great, the bad, the unsightly and the options, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium strategies have no FX markup, we charge a nominal FX markup on our Essential Plan of 0.5% per deal, allowing us to make revenue from our Essential Strategy whilst remaining much cheaper than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the totally free quantity on all our strategies, complete information can be found on our rates strategies.
Subscription costs.
We charge an annual membership cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The membership charge also eliminates all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you spend with your card we get a small % of the deal, called interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and will not be credited you. Can I Top Up My Currensea Card At Post Office