A new fintech company which I was introduced to earlier this year. Can You Have 2 Cardholders On Currensea Card…
It has actually won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (providing you an affordable method to spend abroad) however what I like about is that it is easy as hell. This is a good idea.
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 typical debit card and the money is drawn from your current account– just without the usual 3% fee.
Oh, and is totally free to get, which likewise assists.
There are also some interesting travel benefits if you pick a paid strategy, but the free plan works fine. You can use here.
There is an organization model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and for free or less expensive than the competition
include a growing number of features which your existing consumers don’t really want or need
add costs, charges or constraints to the feature that made people get your item in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is presently still in Stage 1 of this procedure and will hopefully stay there. Monzo, curve and revolut are already in Phase 3 …
is easy 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? Can You Have 2 Cardholders On Currensea Card
It is a free direct debit card to use abroad and which immediately recharges all purchases to your existing current account in Sterling, less a small 0.5% charge.
That’s it.
You do not (yet …) make any airline miles or points for using it.
Why would I wish to get a card?
If you have a charge card offering 0% foreign exchange charges, then you don’t need a card, unless you desire complimentary ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
However, charge card which use rewards and charge 0% FX fees are few and far between. The only ‘points and miles’ choices which provide a partial solution 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 charges and do not want to impact your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to use abroad
you want an item which enables you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals each month with no fees and only a minimal FX mark-up (there is a little fee beyond �,� 500).
you desire a product for you, your adult children, moms and dads, partner or anybody else in your life who needs an easy, easy to understand payment card that will save them money when taking a trip.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I stated earlier, an extremely simple procedure. You utilize your Currensea card in the same way as your existing debit card.
You make your purchase in regional currency (any currency, globally).
Your bank account bank automatically 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 on the currency. includes a 0.5% charge if you have the totally free card. There are no costs if you have among their paid cards.
You get an automatic invest alert through the app, if you choose to install it.
The money is taken from your bank account a few days later.
Here is an example. Without any foreign travel in the diary, I chose to splash out and buy 1,000 MeliaRewards points for EUR5.
This is what you see in the Currensea app, which shows �,� 4.33 arranged to leave my HSBC account a few days later:.
Transforming pounds was costly.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daytime burglary that is just about to occur (frequently in a different language) while not telling you about the inflated currency conversion fees happening in the background. Do not get me started. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyway.
In current years a handful of excellent travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other fantastic cards Currensea promises huge savings (85%) and an excellent app.
However I think the very best bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street checking account.
What this implies is you can invest cash you have in your existing current account with less worry about lacking cash and the additional step. That does not suggest it is ideal.
In this Currensea evaluation is the excellent, the bad, the ugly 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 transaction, enabling us to make revenue from our Essential 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 amount on all our strategies, complete details can be discovered on our pricing strategies.
Membership charges.
We charge an annual membership cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The subscription fee also gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Every time you spend with your card we receive a small % of the deal, known as interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and won’t be credited you. Can You Have 2 Cardholders On Currensea Card