A brand-new fintech business which I was presented to earlier this year. Can I Use Currensea Card For Work…
It has actually won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (providing you an affordable method to invest abroad) but what I like about is that it is simple as hell. This is a good thing.
is, effectively, a direct debit travel card. You merely invest as you would on a regular debit card and the money is taken from your present account– simply without the typical 3% charge.
Oh, and is free to make an application for, which likewise helps.
There are also some intriguing 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 etc have all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and totally free or less expensive than the competitors
add increasingly more features which your existing consumers don’t truly need or desire
include constraints, charges or charges to the function that made people get your product in the first place, getting rid of any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this process and will ideally remain there. Revolut, curve and monzo are already in Stage 3 …
is basic enough that it passes my ‘Can you discuss it to your mate in the bar in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Can I Use Currensea Card For Work
It is a free direct debit card to utilize abroad and which instantly charges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a small 0.5% fee.
That’s it.
You do not (yet …) earn any airline miles or points for utilizing it.
Why would I wish to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% forex costs, then you don’t need a card, unless you desire complimentary ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Credit cards which provide benefits and charge 0% FX fees are few and far in between. The only ‘points and miles’ alternatives which provide a partial solution are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX fees in the Euro zone.
IS potentially for you if:
you do not have a credit card offering 0% FX fees and do not wish to impact your credit report by getting another credit card specifically to utilize abroad
you want a product which allows you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals per month without any fees and only a very little FX mark-up (there is a small fee beyond �,� 500).
you want an item for you, your adult children, parents, partner or anybody else in your life who requires a basic, easy to understand payment card that will save them money when travelling.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I said earlier, a really easy procedure. You use your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in local currency (any currency, internationally).
Your current account bank automatically verifies that you have enough cash in your account and authorises the transaction.
The transaction goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending upon the currency. adds a 0.5% charge if you have the totally free card. There are no fees if you have among their paid cards.
You get an automated spend notification through the app, if you choose to install it.
The cash is taken from your current account a few days later on.
Here is an example. With no foreign travel in the diary, I decided to sprinkle out and purchase 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 few days later:.
But converting pounds was expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime burglary that is practically to happen (typically in a various language) while not telling you about the inflated currency conversion costs happening in the background. Do not get me began. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyway.
In recent years a handful of terrific travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other terrific cards Currensea assures big cost savings (85%) and an excellent app.
I think the finest bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street bank account.
What this implies is you can spend money you have in your existing bank account with less stress over lacking cash and the additional step. That does not mean it is best.
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 Vital Strategy of 0.5% per transaction, allowing us to make revenue from our Necessary Strategy whilst staying much cheaper than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the free amount on all our strategies, full details can be discovered on our prices strategies.
Membership costs.
We charge a yearly membership cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The membership charge likewise gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Whenever you spend with your card we get a little % of the transaction, called interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. Can I Use Currensea Card For Work