A brand-new fintech company which I was introduced to earlier this year. How To Get A Currensea Card In Switzerland…
It has won a few awards over current months for what it does (using you an inexpensive way to spend abroad) but what I like about is that it is basic as hell. This is a good idea.
is, efficiently, a direct debit travel card. You merely invest as you would on a normal debit card and the cash is taken from your current account– simply without the typical 3% charge.
Oh, and is free to request, which also helps.
There are also some interesting travel advantages if you choose a paid plan, but the free plan works fine. You can use 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 free of charge or more affordable than the competition
include a growing number of functions which your existing customers do not actually need or want
include charges, charges or limitations to the function that made people get your product in the first place, eliminating any competitive advantage
is presently still in Phase 1 of this process and will hopefully remain there. Curve, monzo and revolut are already in Phase 3 …
is easy enough that it passes my ‘Can you discuss it to your mate in the pub in 30 seconds?’ test:
What countries can I use Currensea? How To Get A Currensea Card In Switzerland
It is a totally free direct debit card to utilize abroad and which immediately 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 credit card offering 0% forex charges, then you don’t require a card, unless you want totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
Credit cards which use rewards and charge 0% FX fees are few and far between. The only ‘miles and points’ choices which provide a partial solution 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 charge card offering 0% FX charges and do not want to impact your credit report by getting another credit card specifically to use abroad
you want a product which permits you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals per month without any costs and only a very little FX mark-up (there is a small fee beyond �,� 500).
you want an item for you, your adult kids, parents, partner or anybody else in your life who requires an easy, easy to understand payment card that will save them cash when travelling.
How does operate in practice?
It is, as I said previously, a very basic 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 current account bank immediately confirms that you have enough cash in your account and authorises the deal.
The deal goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending on the currency. adds a 0.5% charge if you have the totally free card. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no costs.
You get an automatic spend alert by means of the app, if you select to install it.
The cash is drawn from your current account a couple of days later on.
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 scheduled to leave my HSBC account a few days later on:.
But converting pounds was pricey.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight break-in that is just about to occur (frequently in a different language) while not telling you about the outrageous currency conversion charges occurring in the background. Don’t get me began. Anyhow back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
Fortunately in the last few years a handful of fantastic travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other great cards promises huge savings (85%) and a great app.
I think the best bit may be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street bank account.
What this indicates is you can invest cash you have in your existing current account with less worry about lacking cash and the extra action. That does not suggest it is best.
In this Currensea evaluation is the great, the bad, the ugly and the alternatives, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium plans have no FX markup, we charge a nominal FX markup on our Necessary Plan of 0.5% per transaction, allowing us to make income from our Necessary Strategy whilst staying much cheaper than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We likewise charge an FX markup on ATM use over the free quantity on all our plans, complete information can be found on our prices plans.
Subscription fees.
We charge an annual subscription charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The membership charge likewise gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Every time you invest with your card we receive a small % of the deal, called interchange, this comes directly from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. How To Get A Currensea Card In Switzerland