A brand-new fintech business which I was introduced to earlier this year. How To Use Currensea Card For Singapore…
It has actually won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (offering you a low-priced way to spend abroad) however what I like about is that it is basic 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 bank account. There is nothing to top-up or prepay. You just spend as you would on a typical debit card and the money is drawn from your bank account– simply without the typical 3% charge.
Oh, and is complimentary to make an application for, which also helps.
There are also some fascinating travel advantages if you pick a paid strategy, but 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 something well, and for free or cheaper than the competitors
include a growing number of features which your existing clients don’t actually want or require
include charges, constraints or costs to the feature that made people get your item in the first place, eliminating any competitive advantage
is presently still in Phase 1 of this procedure and will ideally remain there. Monzo, curve and revolut are already in Phase 3 …
is simple 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? How To Use Currensea Card For Singapore
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 little 0.5% charge.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) earn 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% foreign exchange costs, then you don’t require a card, unless you want totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Nevertheless, charge card which offer benefits and charge 0% FX fees are rare. The only ‘miles and points’ choices which use a partial solution are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX costs in the Euro zone.
IS perhaps for you if:
you don’t have a charge card offering 0% FX fees and do not wish to affect your credit report by getting another credit card specifically to use abroad
you desire a product which permits you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals per month with no fees and just a very little FX mark-up (there is a small cost beyond �,� 500).
you want a product for you, your adult kids, parents, partner or anyone else in your life who requires a basic, easy to understand payment card that will conserve them cash when travelling.
How does operate in practice?
It is, as I said previously, a really easy process. You use your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in local currency (any currency, globally).
Your bank account bank automatically validates 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. If you have the free card, includes a 0.5% fee. There are no charges if you have among their paid cards.
You get an automated invest notice by means of the app, if you choose to install it.
The cash is taken from your current account a couple of days later.
Here is an example. Without any foreign travel in the journal, I chose to sprinkle out and purchase 1,000 MeliaRewards points for EUR5.
This is what you see in the Currensea app, which reveals �,� 4.33 scheduled to leave my HSBC account a couple of days later:.
Converting pounds was expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight break-in that is practically to take place (typically in a different language) while not telling you about the outrageous currency conversion costs happening in the background. Don’t get me started. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyway.
Fortunately in recent years a handful of great travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other fantastic cards assures big cost savings (85%) and a fantastic app.
I believe the finest bit may be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street bank account.
What this implies is you can spend cash you have in your existing current account with less worry about running out of cash and the extra action. But that does not imply it is best.
In this Currensea evaluation is the excellent, the bad, the unsightly and the alternatives, 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, allowing us to make income from our Necessary Strategy 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 free amount on all our strategies, complete information can be found on our pricing strategies.
Membership fees.
We charge a yearly membership charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The subscription charge also gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you invest with your card we get a small % of the deal, known as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be charged to you. How To Use Currensea Card For Singapore