A new fintech company which I was introduced to previously this year. Currensea Amex…
It has won a couple of awards over current months for what it does (offering you a low-priced way to invest 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. You just invest as you would on a normal debit card and the money is taken from your present account– just without the typical 3% charge.
Oh, and is totally free to obtain, which likewise assists.
There are likewise some fascinating travel advantages if you pick a paid strategy, but the totally free strategy works fine. You can use here.
There is an organization design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have all followed:
launch by doing something well, and free of charge or more affordable than the competition
include increasingly more features which your existing clients don’t really desire or require
add fees, charges or restrictions to the function that made people get your item in the first place, getting rid of any competitive advantage
is currently still in Stage 1 of this procedure and will hopefully stay there. Curve, Revolut and Monzo are already in Phase 3 …
is easy enough that it passes my ‘Can you discuss it to your mate in the club in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Currensea Amex
It is a complimentary direct debit card to use abroad and which automatically charges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% fee.
That’s it.
You do not (yet …) earn any airline miles or points for utilizing it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% foreign exchange fees, then you do not need a card, unless you desire totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Nevertheless, credit cards which offer rewards and charge 0% FX fees are rare. The only ‘miles and points’ alternatives which offer a partial service are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX charges in the Euro zone.
IS perhaps for you if:
you don’t have a credit card offering 0% FX charges and do not wish to impact your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to utilize abroad
you desire a product which permits you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals monthly without any costs and just a minimal FX mark-up (there is a little charge beyond �,� 500).
you want an item for you, your adult children, parents, partner or anybody else in your life who requires a simple, easy to understand payment card that will save them cash when travelling.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I stated earlier, a really easy procedure. You utilize your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in regional currency (any currency, worldwide).
Your current account bank immediately 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. includes a 0.5% cost if you have the totally free card. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no costs.
You get an automated spend notification via the app, if you choose to install it.
The money is taken from your bank account a couple of days later on.
Here is an example. With no foreign travel in the diary, I decided to splash 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 on:.
But converting pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime robbery that is practically to happen (frequently in a different language) while not telling you about the expensive currency conversion costs happening in the background. Do not get me started. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyway.
In recent years a handful of terrific travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other great cards Currensea assures big cost savings (85%) and a fantastic app.
However I believe the very best bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street savings account.
What this means is you can spend cash you have in your existing current account with less worry about lacking cash and the additional step. However that does not indicate it is ideal.
In this Currensea review is the great, the bad, the awful 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 Necessary Strategy of 0.5% per transaction, enabling us to make revenue from our Necessary Plan whilst staying more affordable than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We likewise charge an FX markup on ATM use over the totally free amount on all our plans, full details can be found on our prices plans.
Membership costs.
We charge a yearly membership fee of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The subscription cost also removes all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you invest with your card we receive a small % of the transaction, known as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be charged to you. Currensea Amex