A new fintech business which I was introduced to earlier this year. How To Add Money To My Currensea Card…
It has won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (using you an affordable method to spend abroad) however what I like about is that it is easy as hell. This is a good thing.
is, efficiently, a direct debit travel card. You simply invest as you would on a typical debit card and the money is taken from your existing account– simply without the normal 3% fee.
Oh, and is complimentary to make an application for, which also assists.
There are likewise some fascinating travel advantages if you pick a paid plan, but the free plan works fine. You can use here.
There is a company design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and free of charge or less expensive than the competition
add a growing number of functions which your existing customers do not truly want or need
add charges, charges or limitations to the function that made people get your item in the first place, eliminating any competitive advantage
is presently still in Phase 1 of this process and will ideally remain there. Curve, monzo and revolut are already in Stage 3 …
is basic 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? How To Add Money To My Currensea Card
It is a complimentary direct debit card to use abroad and which automatically 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 company miles or points for using it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% forex costs, then you don’t require a card, unless you desire free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
Nevertheless, credit cards which offer rewards and charge 0% FX fees are few and far between. The only ‘points and miles’ options which offer a partial service are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX costs in the Euro zone.
IS possibly for you if:
you do not have a charge card offering 0% FX charges and do not wish to affect your credit report by getting another credit card particularly to utilize abroad
you want a product which enables you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals per month with no costs and just a very little FX mark-up (there is a small cost beyond �,� 500).
you desire a product for you, your adult kids, parents, partner or anybody else in your life who needs an easy, easy to understand payment card that will conserve them cash when travelling.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I stated earlier, a really basic process. You use 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 instantly verifies that you have enough money in your account and authorises the transaction.
The transaction goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending on the currency. includes a 0.5% cost if you have the 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.
Here is an example. With no foreign travel in the diary, I decided to sprinkle 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 expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime robbery that is almost to occur (often in a different language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion fees occurring in the background. Don’t get me started. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
Fortunately recently a handful of excellent travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other excellent cards assures huge savings (85%) and a fantastic app.
However I believe the best bit might be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street savings account.
What this indicates is you can spend money you have in your existing bank account with less fret about running out of cash and the additional action. However that does not imply it is perfect.
In this Currensea evaluation is the excellent, the bad, the ugly and the options, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium plans have no FX markup, we charge a nominal FX markup on our Necessary Plan of 0.5% per transaction, enabling us to make profits from our Vital Strategy whilst remaining 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 plans, complete information can be found on our rates strategies.
Membership fees.
We charge an annual subscription charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The subscription cost also eliminates all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Every time you spend with your card we get a small % of the deal, called interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. How To Add Money To My Currensea Card