A brand-new fintech company which I was presented to earlier this year. Can You Use Your Currensea Card To Get Your Salary…
It has won a few awards over current months for what it does (offering you an affordable way to spend abroad) but what I like about is that it is easy as hell. This is a good thing.
is, efficiently, a direct debit travel card. You merely invest as you would on a normal debit card and the money is taken from your present account– simply without the typical 3% charge.
Oh, and is complimentary to get, which also helps.
There are likewise some interesting travel benefits if you pick a paid plan, however the totally free plan works fine. You can apply here.
There is a business model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and for free or more affordable than the competitors
add a growing number of functions which your existing customers don’t really require or want
add limitations, charges or fees to the function that made people get your product in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is presently still in Phase 1 of this process and will ideally remain there. Monzo, revolut and curve are already in Stage 3 …
is basic 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? Can You Use Your Currensea Card To Get Your Salary
It is a complimentary direct debit card to utilize abroad and which automatically recharges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% cost.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) earn any airline miles or points for using it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a credit card offering 0% foreign exchange charges, then you do not require a card, unless you desire totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
Credit cards which provide benefits and charge 0% FX charges are couple of and far between. The only ‘points and miles’ choices which offer a partial service are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX costs in the Euro zone.
IS perhaps for you if:
you don’t have a credit card offering 0% FX fees and do not wish to impact your credit report by getting another credit card particularly to utilize abroad
you want a product which allows you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals monthly without any fees and only 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 work in practice?
It is, as I said previously, an extremely simple procedure. You utilize your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in regional currency (any currency, globally).
Your current account bank automatically validates that you have enough money in your account and authorises the transaction.
The deal goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending upon the currency. If you have the free card, includes a 0.5% cost. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no fees.
You get an automatic spend notification through the app, if you choose to install it.
The money is taken from your bank account a few days later on.
Here is an example. With no foreign travel in the diary, I chose to splash out and buy 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 few days later:.
However transforming pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight break-in that is almost to take place (often in a various 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 anyhow.
Thankfully in recent years a handful of terrific travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other fantastic cards assures big cost savings (85%) and a great app.
However I think the best bit might be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street bank account.
What this suggests is you can spend cash you have in your existing current account with less worry about running out of cash and the extra step. That does not mean it is ideal.
In this Currensea review is the excellent, the bad, the ugly 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 Necessary Strategy of 0.5% per deal, allowing us to make earnings from our Important Plan whilst staying much cheaper than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We likewise charge an FX markup on ATM use over the totally free amount on all our strategies, complete details can be found on our rates plans.
Membership costs.
We charge a yearly membership cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The subscription charge likewise eliminates all FX markup on transactions.
Interchange.
Every time you invest with your card we get a small % of the deal, known as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be charged to you. Can You Use Your Currensea Card To Get Your Salary