A brand-new fintech business which I was introduced to earlier this year. Can You Use Currensea Card In Uk Shops…
It has won a couple of awards over current months for what it does (providing you an affordable method to invest abroad) but what I like about is that it is easy as hell. This is a good thing.
is, successfully, a direct debit travel card. It is a Mastercard which sits in between you and your existing current account. There is absolutely nothing to top-up or prepay. You just invest as you would on a typical debit card and the money is taken from your current account– simply without the usual 3% cost.
Oh, and is totally free to look for, which likewise helps.
There are also some intriguing travel advantages if you pick a paid strategy, but the free strategy works fine. You can apply here.
There is a business model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have actually all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and for free or cheaper than the competition
add a growing number of functions which your existing customers don’t actually want or require
add constraints, fees or charges to the feature that made people get your product in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is currently still in Phase 1 of this process and will hopefully remain there. Curve, monzo and revolut are already in Phase 3 …
is simple enough that it passes my ‘Can you describe it to your mate in the bar in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Can You Use Currensea Card In Uk Shops
It is a free direct debit card to use abroad and which instantly charges all purchases to your existing current account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% cost.
That’s it.
You do not (yet …) make any airline company miles or points for using it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% forex costs, then you don’t require a card, unless you desire complimentary ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
Credit cards which offer benefits and charge 0% FX costs are couple of and far in between. The only ‘points and miles’ choices which offer a partial option 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 want to impact your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to utilize abroad
you desire a product which enables you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals monthly without any fees and just a very little FX mark-up (there is a small charge beyond �,� 500).
you want an item 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 operate in practice?
It is, as I said previously, an extremely easy 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 bank account bank immediately verifies that you have enough money in your account and authorises the deal.
The deal goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending on the currency. adds a 0.5% fee if you have the totally free card. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no costs.
You get an automatic spend notification by means of the app, if you pick to install it.
The money is drawn from your current account a couple of days later on.
Here is an example. Without any foreign travel in the journal, I decided to splash 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 few days later on:.
Converting pounds was expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime break-in that is almost to occur (frequently in a various language) while not telling you about the expensive currency conversion charges occurring in the background. Do not get me started. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyway.
Thankfully over the last few years a handful of excellent travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other great cards promises huge cost savings (85%) and an excellent app.
I think the best bit may be what no other card does: links to your existing high street bank account.
What this means is you can spend cash you have in your existing current account with less worry about running out of cash and the additional step. That does not suggest it is ideal.
In this Currensea evaluation is the excellent, the bad, the awful and the options, so that you can decide.
FX markup.
While our premium strategies have no FX markup, we charge a small FX markup on our Vital Plan of 0.5% per transaction, enabling us to make revenue from our Necessary Plan whilst staying more affordable than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We likewise charge an FX markup on ATM use over the complimentary amount on all our strategies, complete details can be found on our prices plans.
Subscription fees.
We charge an annual membership charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The membership cost likewise gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you invest with your card we get a small % of the deal, referred to as interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. Can You Use Currensea Card In Uk Shops