A brand-new fintech business which I was presented to earlier this year. Can You Go Overdrawn With A Currensea Card…
It has actually won a couple of awards over current months for what it does (providing you an inexpensive way to spend abroad) but what I like about is that it is simple as hell. This is a good idea.
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 just invest as you would on a normal debit card and the cash is drawn from your bank account– simply without the usual 3% cost.
Oh, and is totally free to request, which likewise helps.
There are also some fascinating travel advantages if you select a paid strategy, however the totally free plan works fine. You can apply here.
There is a company model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have all followed:
launch by doing something well, and totally free or more affordable than the competition
add increasingly more features which your existing customers do not actually want or need
add costs, charges or restrictions to the feature that made individuals get your product in the first place, getting rid of any competitive advantage
is presently still in Phase 1 of this process and will hopefully stay there. Monzo, revolut and curve are currently in Stage 3 …
is simple 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? Can You Go Overdrawn With A Currensea Card
It is a complimentary direct debit card to utilize abroad and which immediately charges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a small 0.5% cost.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) earn any airline company miles or points for utilizing it.
Why would I wish to get a card?
If you have a credit card offering 0% forex charges, then you do not require a card, unless you want free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Nevertheless, credit cards which offer benefits and charge 0% FX costs are few and far between. The only ‘miles and points’ choices which use a partial option are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX costs in the Euro zone.
IS potentially for you if:
you do not have a charge card offering 0% FX charges and do not wish to affect your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to use abroad
you desire a product which permits you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals each month with no fees and just a minimal FX mark-up (there is a small fee beyond �,� 500).
you want a product for you, your adult children, moms and dads, 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 stated previously, a really easy process. You utilize your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in local currency (any currency, worldwide).
Your bank account bank immediately validates that you have enough money in your account and authorises the deal.
The transaction goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending upon the currency. includes a 0.5% cost if you have the totally free card. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no costs.
You get an automatic invest 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 diary, I chose to sprinkle out and purchase 1,000 MeliaRewards points for EUR5.
This is what you see in the Currensea app, which shows �,� 4.33 set up to leave my HSBC account a couple of days later on:.
Converting pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight robbery that is practically to occur (often in a different language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion costs taking place in the background. Do not get me began. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyway.
Thankfully recently a handful of fantastic travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other great cards assures big cost savings (85%) and an excellent app.
But I think the best bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street savings account.
What this means is you can spend money you have in your existing bank account with less stress over lacking money and the extra step. But that does not mean it is ideal.
In this Currensea review is the good, the bad, the awful and the alternatives, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium strategies have no FX markup, we charge a nominal FX markup on our Important Strategy of 0.5% per deal, permitting us to make earnings from our Essential Plan whilst staying more affordable than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the complimentary quantity on all our plans, full information can be found on our prices plans.
Membership costs.
We charge an annual subscription fee of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The membership charge also gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you spend with your card we get a small % of the deal, referred to as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. Can You Go Overdrawn With A Currensea Card