A brand-new fintech business which I was introduced to previously 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 inexpensive way to invest abroad) but what I like about is that it is easy as hell. This is a good thing.
is, efficiently, 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 just spend as you would on a typical debit card and the cash is drawn from your bank account– just without the usual 3% fee.
Oh, and is complimentary to obtain, which likewise assists.
There are likewise some intriguing travel advantages if you select a paid plan, but the free plan works fine. You can apply here.
There is a company model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and free of charge or cheaper than the competition
add increasingly more features which your existing consumers do not really desire or require
add restrictions, charges or fees to the feature that made people get your item in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this process and will hopefully stay there. Monzo, curve and revolut are currently in Stage 3 …
is easy enough that it passes my ‘Can you explain 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 totally free direct debit card to utilize abroad and which instantly recharges all purchases to your existing current account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% fee.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) earn any airline company miles or points for using it.
Why would I wish to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% forex costs, then you don’t require a card, unless you want free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
However, credit cards which provide rewards and charge 0% FX fees are rare. The only ‘miles and points’ choices which offer a partial service are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX fees in the Euro zone.
IS perhaps for you if:
you do not have a charge card offering 0% FX costs and do not want to impact your credit report by getting another charge card specifically to utilize abroad
you want a product which enables you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals monthly with no charges and only a very little FX mark-up (there is a little charge beyond �,� 500).
you desire an item for you, your adult children, parents, partner or anybody else in your life who needs a basic, easy to understand payment card that will conserve them money when travelling.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I said previously, a really simple process. 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 immediately validates that you have enough 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. includes a 0.5% fee if you have the totally free card. There are no costs if you have one of their paid cards.
You get an automated spend alert via the app, if you choose 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 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 couple of days later:.
However transforming pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight burglary that is just about to occur (typically in a different language) while not telling you about the outrageous currency conversion costs happening in the background. Do not get me started. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
Fortunately recently a handful of fantastic travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other fantastic cards assures big savings (85%) and a great app.
However I think the best bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street savings account.
What this suggests is you can spend money you have in your existing bank account with less fret about lacking money and the additional step. However that does not mean it is best.
In this Currensea review is the excellent, the bad, the awful and the options, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium plans 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 Essential Plan whilst remaining much cheaper than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We likewise charge an FX markup on ATM use over the complimentary quantity on all our plans, full information can be found on our rates strategies.
Subscription fees.
We charge an annual subscription cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The subscription charge also eliminates all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Every time you spend with your card we get a small % of the deal, referred to as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be credited you. How To Get The Sidemen Currensea Card