A new fintech business which I was introduced to earlier this year. How To Get The Sidemen Currensea Card…
It has won a few awards over recent months for what it does (using you an affordable method to invest abroad) however what I like about is that it is basic as hell. This is a good thing.
is, effectively, 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 merely spend as you would on a normal debit card and the cash is drawn from your bank account– simply without the typical 3% charge.
Oh, and is totally free to make an application for, which also helps.
There are also some intriguing travel advantages if you choose a paid plan, but the totally free strategy works fine. You can use here.
There is a service model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have actually all followed:
launch by doing something well, and for free or more affordable than the competition
include increasingly more functions which your existing clients do not truly need or desire
include charges, fees or constraints to the feature that made people get your item in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is currently still in Phase 1 of this process and will hopefully stay there. Curve, Revolut and Monzo are already in Stage 3 …
is easy enough that it passes my ‘Can you describe it to your mate in the pub in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? How To Get The Sidemen Currensea Card
It is a free direct debit card to use abroad and which instantly charges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% fee.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) make any airline company miles or points for using it.
Why would I wish to get a card?
If you have a credit card offering 0% forex fees, then you don’t require a card, unless you want complimentary ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
However, credit cards which provide rewards and charge 0% FX fees are rare. The only ‘points and miles’ choices which provide a partial solution are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX charges in the Euro zone.
IS possibly for you if:
you don’t have a charge card offering 0% FX costs and do not wish to affect your credit report by getting another charge card specifically to utilize abroad
you want an item 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 desire a product for you, your adult children, moms and dads, partner or anyone else in your life who needs a basic, easy to understand payment card that will save them money when travelling.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I stated previously, an extremely basic 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 bank account bank instantly verifies that you have sufficient 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. If you have the totally free card, adds a 0.5% cost. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no fees.
You get an automatic spend notification by means of the app, if you pick to install it.
The money is taken from your bank account a few days later on.
Here is an example. Without any foreign travel in the journal, I chose 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 couple of days later on:.
However converting pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime robbery that is practically to occur (frequently in a different language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion fees happening in the background. Do not get me started. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyway.
In recent years a handful of excellent travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other excellent cards Currensea assures huge cost savings (85%) and a fantastic app.
But I think the very best bit might be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street savings account.
What this means is you can invest cash you have in your existing bank account with less stress over lacking cash and the extra step. That does not imply it is ideal.
In this Currensea review is the good, the bad, the unsightly and the options, so that you can decide.
FX markup.
While our premium strategies have no FX markup, we charge a nominal FX markup on our Necessary Plan of 0.5% per deal, enabling us to make income from our Essential Plan whilst staying much cheaper than other prepaid 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 information can be found on our pricing strategies.
Membership fees.
We charge an annual membership charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The membership charge also removes all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Every time you spend with your card we get a little % of the deal, called interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. How To Get The Sidemen Currensea Card