A brand-new fintech business which I was presented to earlier this year. Can You Pay A Bill With A Currensea Card…
It has actually won a few awards over recent months for what it does (providing you an inexpensive method to spend abroad) but what I like about is that it is basic as hell. This is a good idea.
is, efficiently, a direct debit travel card. It is a Mastercard which sits in between you and your existing current account. There is absolutely nothing to top-up or prepay. You just invest as you would on a typical debit card and the cash is drawn from your bank account– simply without the normal 3% cost.
Oh, and is totally free to look for, which also assists.
There are also some interesting travel benefits if you choose a paid strategy, but the free strategy works fine. You can apply here.
There is a service model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have actually all followed:
launch by doing something well, and free of charge or more affordable than the competitors
add more and more functions which your existing consumers don’t actually need or want
add constraints, charges or charges to the function that made people get your item in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is presently still in Phase 1 of this procedure and will hopefully stay there. Revolut, monzo and curve are already in Stage 3 …
is simple enough that it passes my ‘Can you discuss it to your mate in the pub in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Can You Pay A Bill With A Currensea Card
It is a free direct debit card to utilize abroad and which immediately recharges all purchases to your existing current account in Sterling, less a small 0.5% fee.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) make any airline miles or points for utilizing it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% forex fees, then you do not need a card, unless you want free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
However, credit cards which offer benefits and charge 0% FX fees are rare. The only ‘miles and points’ choices which offer a partial option are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX charges in the Euro zone.
IS perhaps for you if:
you do not have a charge card offering 0% FX charges and do not want to impact your credit report by getting another credit card particularly to utilize abroad
you desire an item which permits you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals each month without any fees and just a very little FX mark-up (there is a small fee beyond �,� 500).
you want a product for you, your adult kids, moms and dads, partner or anyone else in your life who needs a simple, easy to understand payment card that will conserve them money when travelling.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I stated earlier, a really simple procedure. You utilize your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in local currency (any currency, worldwide).
Your current account bank immediately verifies that you have sufficient cash in your account and authorises the transaction.
The transaction goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending on the currency. adds 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 invest notification via the app, if you choose to install it.
The money is drawn from your current account a few days later on.
Here is an example. Without any 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 reveals �,� 4.33 set up to leave my HSBC account a few days later on:.
Transforming pounds was pricey.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight burglary that is almost 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 began. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyway.
Thankfully over the last few years a handful of great travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other terrific cards assures huge cost savings (85%) and a terrific app.
However 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 money you have in your existing current account with less stress over lacking money and the extra step. That does not indicate it is perfect.
In this Currensea review is the great, the bad, the ugly and the options, so that you can decide.
FX markup.
While our premium plans have no FX markup, we charge a small FX markup on our Vital Plan of 0.5% per deal, permitting us to make income from our Vital Plan whilst remaining much cheaper than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We likewise charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the free quantity on all our strategies, full information can be found on our pricing strategies.
Membership charges.
We charge a yearly subscription charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The subscription charge 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 directly from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. Can You Pay A Bill With A Currensea Card