A brand-new fintech business which I was presented to earlier this year. Currensea Card Billing Country…
It has won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (offering you an inexpensive way to spend abroad) but what I like about is that it is basic as hell. This is an advantage.
is, effectively, a direct debit travel card. You simply spend as you would on a regular debit card and the money is taken from your present account– simply without the typical 3% cost.
Oh, and is totally free to look for, which likewise helps.
There are also some intriguing travel benefits if you select a paid strategy, however the totally free strategy works fine. You can apply here.
There is an organization 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 competitors
include a growing number of functions which your existing customers do not truly need or desire
include restrictions, charges or costs to the feature 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, curve and revolut are already in Phase 3 …
is basic 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? Currensea Card Billing Country
It is a totally free direct debit card to use abroad and which automatically recharges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% cost.
That’s it.
You do not (yet …) make any airline miles or points for using it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a credit card offering 0% forex fees, then you don’t require a card, unless you want free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
Nevertheless, charge card which use rewards and charge 0% FX charges are few and far between. The only ‘points and miles’ alternatives which use a partial option are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX charges in the Euro zone.
IS possibly for you if:
you do not have a credit card offering 0% FX costs and do not wish to affect your credit report by getting another credit card specifically to utilize abroad
you want an item which enables you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals each month without any charges and just a very little FX mark-up (there is a little fee beyond �,� 500).
you want a product for you, your adult kids, moms and dads, partner or anybody else in your life who needs a simple, easy to understand payment card that will save them money when taking a trip.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I said previously, a very 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, worldwide).
Your bank account bank immediately validates that you have adequate cash in your account and authorises the transaction.
The deal goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending upon the currency. includes 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 alert by means of the app, if you select to install it.
The cash is taken from your current account a couple of days later.
Here is an example. Without any foreign travel in the diary, I decided to splash out and buy 1,000 MeliaRewards points for EUR5.
This is what you see in the Currensea app, which shows �,� 4.33 scheduled to leave my HSBC account a couple of days later on:.
Converting pounds was expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime robbery that is almost to occur (often in a different language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion charges happening in the background. Don’t get me began. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyway.
Thankfully in recent years a handful of terrific travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other excellent cards guarantees big savings (85%) and a terrific app.
However I believe the best bit might be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street bank account.
What this means is you can spend cash you have in your existing bank account with less fret about lacking money and the additional step. But that does not suggest it is best.
In this Currensea evaluation is the excellent, the bad, the awful 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 Important Strategy of 0.5% per deal, allowing us to make earnings from our Necessary Strategy whilst staying more affordable than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the free quantity on all our plans, complete details can be found on our rates plans.
Subscription fees.
We charge an annual subscription fee of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The subscription cost also removes all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you spend with your card we get a little % of the deal, known as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be charged to you. Currensea Card Billing Country