A brand-new fintech company which I was presented to earlier this year. Currensea Money Transfer…
It has actually won a few awards over current months for what it does (using you a low-cost 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. It is a Mastercard which sits in between you and your existing current account. There is 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 typical 3% charge.
Oh, and is free to request, which also assists.
There are likewise some interesting travel advantages if you pick a paid strategy, however the free strategy works fine. You can use here.
There is a service design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and for free or cheaper than the competitors
include more and more features which your existing customers don’t actually want or require
add charges, constraints or charges to the feature that made people get your item in the first place, eliminating any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this procedure and will hopefully remain there. Curve, monzo and revolut are already in Stage 3 …
is easy 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 Money Transfer
It is a totally free direct debit card to utilize abroad and which automatically charges all purchases to your existing current account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% charge.
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% foreign exchange charges, then you don’t need a card, unless you desire totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
However, charge card which use benefits and charge 0% FX charges are scarce. The only ‘miles and points’ alternatives which use a partial service are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX charges in the Euro zone.
IS potentially for you if:
you don’t have a credit card offering 0% FX costs and do not want to affect your credit report by getting another credit card particularly to utilize abroad
you desire a product which allows you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals each month without any charges and only a very little FX mark-up (there is a small fee beyond �,� 500).
you desire 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 work in practice?
It is, as I stated previously, an extremely simple procedure. You use your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in regional currency (any currency, internationally).
Your current account bank automatically verifies that you have sufficient cash in your account and authorises the deal.
The transaction goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending on the currency. If you have the totally free card, includes a 0.5% charge. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no costs.
You get an automated spend notification via the app, if you pick to install it.
The money is drawn from your bank account a few days later.
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:.
But converting pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime robbery that is almost to occur (often in a various language) while not telling you about the outrageous currency conversion charges taking place in the background. Don’t get me started. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
In current years a handful of great travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other fantastic cards Currensea promises big savings (85%) and a fantastic app.
But I believe the very best bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street bank account.
What this implies is you can invest cash you have in your existing current account with less stress over running out of money and the additional step. However that does not indicate it is perfect.
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 small FX markup on our Important Strategy of 0.5% per deal, allowing us to make earnings from our Essential Plan whilst remaining much cheaper than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We likewise charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the complimentary amount on all our plans, complete details can be found on our prices plans.
Subscription charges.
We charge an annual membership charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The membership fee also gets rid of all FX markup on transactions.
Interchange.
Every time you spend with your card we get a small % of the deal, referred to as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be credited you. Currensea Money Transfer