A new fintech company which I was presented to previously this year. Load Currensea With Credit Card…
It has won a couple of awards over current months for what it does (providing you a low-cost method to invest abroad) but what I like about is that it is easy 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 bank account. There is absolutely nothing to top-up or prepay. You just invest as you would on a typical debit card and the money is taken from your current account– simply without the typical 3% cost.
Oh, and is complimentary to obtain, which also assists.
There are also some interesting travel benefits if you pick a paid plan, but the free strategy works fine. You can use here.
There is a business design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have actually all followed:
launch by doing something well, and free of charge or more affordable than the competition
include increasingly more functions which your existing consumers don’t actually need or desire
include charges, fees or restrictions to the feature that made individuals get your product in the first place, getting rid of any competitive advantage
is presently still in Phase 1 of this process and will hopefully stay there. Revolut, monzo and curve are already in Phase 3 …
is basic enough that it passes my ‘Can you explain it to your mate in the club in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Load Currensea With Credit 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 small 0.5% fee.
That’s it.
You do not (yet …) make 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% foreign exchange charges, then you do not require a card, unless you want free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
However, charge card which use benefits and charge 0% FX fees are rare. The only ‘points and miles’ options which use a partial service are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX costs in the Euro zone.
IS possibly for you if:
you don’t have a credit card offering 0% FX costs and do not wish to impact your credit report by getting another credit card particularly to use abroad
you want a product which allows you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals monthly with no costs and only a minimal FX mark-up (there is a little charge beyond �,� 500).
you desire an item for you, your adult children, parents, partner or anyone else in your life who needs an easy, easy to understand payment card that will save them money when taking a trip.
How does operate in practice?
It is, as I said earlier, a very simple procedure. You utilize your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in local currency (any currency, worldwide).
Your bank account bank instantly validates that you have sufficient money in your account and authorises the deal.
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. There are no fees if you have among their paid cards.
You get an automated spend notice by means of the app, if you select to install it.
The cash is taken from your current account a few days later on.
Here is an example. With no foreign travel in the diary, I decided to sprinkle out and purchase 1,000 MeliaRewards points for EUR5.
This is what you see in the Currensea app, which reveals �,� 4.33 arranged to leave my HSBC account a couple of days later:.
Converting pounds was pricey.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight robbery that is just about to take place (frequently in a various language) while not telling you about the expensive currency conversion fees occurring in the background. Do not get me started. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyway.
In recent years a handful of terrific travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other terrific cards Currensea assures huge cost savings (85%) and an excellent app.
I think the best bit may be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street bank account.
What this means is you can invest money you have in your existing bank account with less stress over running out of money and the extra step. But that does not imply it is best.
In this Currensea evaluation is the great, the bad, the ugly and the options, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium strategies have no FX markup, we charge a small FX markup on our Necessary Plan of 0.5% per transaction, enabling us to make profits from our Necessary Strategy whilst remaining more affordable than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the free quantity on all our plans, full details can be found on our prices strategies.
Subscription costs.
We charge an annual subscription cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The membership charge also removes all FX markup on transactions.
Interchange.
Every time you invest with your card we receive a small % of the transaction, called interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. Load Currensea With Credit Card