A brand-new fintech company which I was presented to earlier this year. Are There Fees To Top Up Currensea Card…
It has won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (providing you a low-priced way to spend abroad) but what I like about is that it is basic as hell. This is a good thing.
is, effectively, a direct debit travel card. You merely spend as you would on a typical debit card and the money is taken from your existing account– just without the typical 3% charge.
Oh, and is complimentary to get, which also helps.
There are also some interesting travel benefits if you choose a paid plan, but the free plan works fine. You can apply here.
There is a business design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have all followed:
launch by doing something well, and for free or less expensive than the competition
include a growing number of functions which your existing consumers don’t actually desire or need
include costs, charges or limitations to the feature that made people 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. Curve, monzo and revolut are already in Stage 3 …
is easy enough that it passes my ‘Can you describe it to your mate in the bar in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Are There Fees To Top Up 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 small 0.5% fee.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) make any airline miles or points for using it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% foreign exchange charges, then you do not need a card, unless you desire free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
However, credit cards which provide rewards and charge 0% FX charges are rare. The only ‘points and miles’ choices which offer a partial solution are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX charges in the Euro zone.
IS perhaps for you if:
you do not have a charge card offering 0% FX charges and do not want to impact your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to utilize abroad
you desire 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 an item for you, your adult children, parents, partner or anyone else in your life who needs a simple, easy to understand payment card that will conserve them money when taking a trip.
How does operate in practice?
It is, as I said previously, a very basic process. You utilize your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in regional currency (any currency, internationally).
Your current account bank immediately verifies that you have sufficient cash in your account and authorises the deal.
The transaction goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending on the currency. If you have the free card, includes a 0.5% fee. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no charges.
You get an automatic spend alert through the app, if you pick 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 journal, I chose to splash 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 few days later:.
But converting pounds was expensive.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight break-in that is just about to occur (frequently in a various language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion costs happening in the background. Do not get me started. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
Thankfully over the last few years a handful of excellent travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other great cards promises big savings (85%) and an excellent app.
But I believe the best bit might be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street bank account.
What this implies is you can invest cash you have in your existing current account with less fret about lacking cash and the additional step. That does not suggest it is perfect.
In this Currensea review is the excellent, the bad, the awful and the options, so that you can decide.
FX markup.
While our premium plans have no FX markup, we charge a small FX markup on our Essential Plan of 0.5% per transaction, permitting us to make revenue from our Essential Plan whilst remaining much cheaper than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We likewise charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the complimentary quantity on all our plans, complete information can be found on our prices strategies.
Membership fees.
We charge an annual subscription cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The membership charge likewise gets rid of all FX markup on transactions.
Interchange.
Every time you invest with your card we receive a small % of the deal, called interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and will not be charged to you. Are There Fees To Top Up Currensea Card