A brand-new fintech company which I was introduced to previously this year. Can I Use My Currensea Card In South Africa…
It has actually won a few awards over recent months for what it does (offering you an affordable way to invest 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 absolutely nothing to top-up or prepay. You simply invest as you would on a typical debit card and the money is drawn from your bank account– just without the typical 3% charge.
Oh, and is free to make an application for, which likewise assists.
There are also some fascinating travel advantages if you select a paid strategy, but the free plan works fine. You can apply here.
There is a service design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and for free or more affordable than the competitors
add more and more features which your existing consumers don’t really need or want
include restrictions, costs or charges to the function that made individuals get your product in the first place, getting rid of any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this process and will ideally remain there. Revolut, monzo and curve are already in Stage 3 …
is basic enough that it passes my ‘Can you discuss it to your mate in the club in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? Can I Use My Currensea Card In South Africa
It is a totally free direct debit card to use abroad and which automatically charges all purchases to your existing bank 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 want to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% forex costs, then you do not need a card, unless you want free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Nevertheless, credit cards which provide benefits and charge 0% FX costs are scarce. The only ‘points and miles’ options which offer a partial solution are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX costs in the Euro zone.
IS potentially for you if:
you don’t have a credit card offering 0% FX fees and do not wish to affect your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to utilize abroad
you want a product which allows you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals monthly without any fees and just a very little FX mark-up (there is a small fee beyond �,� 500).
you desire a product 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 cash when travelling.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I said earlier, an extremely basic process. 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 automatically confirms that you have enough money in your account and authorises the transaction.
The transaction goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending on the currency. adds a 0.5% charge if you have the free card. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no fees.
You get an automatic invest notice by means of the app, if you choose to install it.
The cash is drawn from your bank account a couple of days later on.
Here is an example. With no foreign travel in the diary, I decided to sprinkle 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 couple of days later on:.
Transforming pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime robbery that is almost to happen (frequently in a various language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion fees happening in the background. Do not get me started. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
In recent years a handful of excellent travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other great cards Currensea assures big cost savings (85%) and a fantastic app.
I think the best bit might be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street bank account.
What this suggests is you can spend cash you have in your existing bank account with less stress over running out of cash and the extra step. That does not suggest it is perfect.
In this Currensea evaluation is the great, the bad, the awful and the options, so that you can decide.
FX markup.
While our premium strategies have no FX markup, we charge a small FX markup on our Necessary Plan of 0.5% per deal, allowing us to make earnings from our Important Plan whilst remaining more affordable than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM use over the free quantity on all our plans, complete information can be found on our rates plans.
Subscription costs.
We charge an annual membership cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The membership charge also gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you spend with your card we receive a small % of the transaction, referred to as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and won’t be credited you. Can I Use My Currensea Card In South Africa