A brand-new fintech company which I was presented to previously this year. Can.Pay For Hotel My 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) however what I like about is that it is simple as hell. This is an advantage.
is, effectively, a direct debit travel card. It is a Mastercard which sits between you and your existing current account. There is nothing to top-up or prepay. You simply invest as you would on a typical debit card and the money is taken from your current account– simply without the normal 3% charge.
Oh, and is complimentary to request, which also assists.
There are also some intriguing travel advantages if you choose a paid plan, however the totally free plan works fine. You can apply here.
There is an organization design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo etc have actually all followed:
launch by doing something well, and for free or less expensive than the competitors
add increasingly more features which your existing consumers do not really want or need
include restrictions, fees or charges to the feature that made individuals get your product in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is presently still in Phase 1 of this procedure and will ideally stay there. Curve, Revolut and Monzo are already in Phase 3 …
is easy 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.Pay For Hotel My Currensea Card
It is a complimentary direct debit card to utilize abroad and which automatically charges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% cost.
That’s it.
You don’t (yet …) earn any airline miles or points for utilizing it.
Why would I wish to get a card?
If you have a credit card offering 0% forex fees, then you don’t require a card, unless you want totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Credit cards which provide benefits and charge 0% FX costs are few and far in between. The only ‘points and miles’ alternatives which provide a partial solution are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX charges in the Euro zone.
IS perhaps for you if:
you don’t have a charge card offering 0% FX costs and do not want to impact your credit report by getting another credit card specifically to utilize abroad
you desire a product which enables you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals per month with no charges and only a minimal FX mark-up (there is a small charge beyond �,� 500).
you want a product for you, your adult children, parents, partner or anyone else in your life who requires an easy, easy to understand payment card that will conserve them cash when taking a trip.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I said previously, an extremely 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, worldwide).
Your current account bank automatically verifies that you have enough money in your account and authorises the deal.
The deal goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending on the currency. If you have the free card, adds a 0.5% fee. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no charges.
You get an automatic invest notification through the app, if you select to install it.
The cash is drawn from your bank account a few days later.
Here is an example. Without any foreign travel in the diary, I decided to splash out and buy 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:.
However converting pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime robbery that is just about to happen (frequently in a different language) while not telling you about the expensive currency conversion charges taking place in the background. Don’t get me began. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
Thankfully recently a handful of terrific travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other terrific cards guarantees huge cost savings (85%) and a terrific app.
But I believe the best bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street savings account.
What this suggests is you can invest cash you have in your existing bank account with less worry about running out of money and the additional action. However that does not imply it is ideal.
In this Currensea evaluation is the excellent, the bad, the ugly and the options, so that you can decide.
FX markup.
While our premium plans have no FX markup, we charge a nominal FX markup on our Important Plan of 0.5% per transaction, enabling us to make earnings from our Necessary Plan whilst remaining more affordable than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We likewise charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the totally free quantity on all our strategies, full information can be found on our prices plans.
Subscription fees.
We charge an annual membership fee of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The membership fee also gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you invest with your card we receive a small % of the deal, referred to as interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and will not be credited you. Can.Pay For Hotel My Currensea Card