A brand-new fintech business which I was introduced to earlier this year. Is Currensea A Travel Card…
It has actually won a couple of awards over current months for what it does (offering you an inexpensive way to invest abroad) but what I like about is that it is basic as hell. This is a good thing.
is, successfully, 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 merely invest as you would on a normal debit card and the money is drawn from your current account– just without the usual 3% fee.
Oh, and is free to request, which likewise assists.
There are likewise some fascinating travel advantages if you pick a paid plan, but the totally free strategy works fine. You can use here.
There is a company design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have actually all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and totally free or cheaper than the competition
add more and more functions which your existing consumers do not really require or want
add costs, restrictions or charges to the function that made people get your product in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this process and will hopefully stay there. Curve, monzo and revolut are already in Phase 3 …
is basic enough that it passes my ‘Can you describe it to your mate in the club in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Is Currensea A Travel Card
It is a complimentary direct debit card to use abroad and which instantly recharges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% cost.
That’s it.
You do not (yet …) earn any airline company miles or points for using it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a credit card offering 0% forex charges, then you do not require a card, unless you want totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Credit cards which provide rewards and charge 0% FX costs are couple of and far between. The only ‘points and miles’ alternatives which use a partial service are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX costs in the Euro zone.
IS potentially for you if:
you do not have a credit card offering 0% FX costs and do not want to affect your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to utilize abroad
you desire an item which permits 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 little charge beyond �,� 500).
you want a product for you, your adult kids, moms and dads, partner or anyone else in your life who requires a basic, easy to understand payment card that will conserve them money when taking a trip.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I said previously, a very basic procedure. You utilize 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 confirms that you have adequate money 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% charge. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no charges.
You get an automated invest notice through the app, if you select to install it.
The money is drawn from your bank account a couple of days later.
Here is an example. With no foreign travel in the journal, I decided to splash out and buy 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:.
Transforming pounds was pricey.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime robbery that is just about to take place (typically in a different language) while not telling you about the inflated currency conversion costs occurring in the background. Don’t get me began. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyway.
In recent years a handful of excellent travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other excellent cards Currensea assures big cost savings (85%) and a fantastic app.
However I think the best bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street checking account.
What this suggests is you can invest cash you have in your existing current account with less stress over lacking cash and the additional action. However that does not imply it is perfect.
In this Currensea evaluation 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 Plan of 0.5% per deal, permitting us to make revenue from our Essential Strategy whilst remaining much cheaper than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM use over the totally free quantity on all our plans, complete information can be discovered on our pricing strategies.
Membership costs.
We charge an annual subscription charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The subscription cost also gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Whenever you invest with your card we receive a small % of the transaction, called interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and will not be charged to you. Is Currensea A Travel Card