A new fintech business which I was introduced to earlier this year. Can You Rent A Car With Currensea Card…
It has won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (offering you a low-cost way to invest abroad) however what I like about is that it is basic as hell. This is an advantage.
is, efficiently, a direct debit travel card. It is a Mastercard which sits in between you and your existing bank account. There is nothing to top-up or prepay. You merely spend as you would on a typical debit card and the cash is taken from your bank account– just without the usual 3% cost.
Oh, and is free to make an application for, which also helps.
There are also some intriguing travel advantages if you select a paid plan, but the complimentary plan works fine. You can apply here.
There is a service design in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have actually all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and free of charge or more affordable than the competition
include more and more functions which your existing consumers don’t actually want or need
add charges, charges or restrictions to the feature that made people get your item in the first place, eliminating any competitive advantage
is currently still in Stage 1 of this process and will ideally stay there. Revolut, monzo and curve are already in Phase 3 …
is simple 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 You Rent A Car With Currensea Card
It is a totally free direct debit card to utilize abroad and which automatically recharges all purchases to your existing bank account in Sterling, less a little 0.5% charge.
That’s it.
You do not (yet …) make any airline miles or points for using it.
Why would I want to get a card?
If you have a credit card offering 0% forex fees, then you don’t need a card, unless you want totally free ATM withdrawals. You can stop checking out now.
However, charge card which provide rewards and charge 0% FX fees are few and far between. The only ‘miles and points’ alternatives which use a partial option are the Virgin Atlantic credit cards which have 0% FX costs in the Euro zone.
IS possibly for you if:
you do not have a charge card offering 0% FX costs and do not wish to impact your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to utilize abroad
you desire a product which permits you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals monthly without any costs and only a minimal FX mark-up (there is a small charge beyond �,� 500).
you desire an item for you, your adult kids, parents, partner or anybody else in your life who requires a basic, easy to understand payment card that will save them cash when travelling.
How does operate in practice?
It is, as I said previously, a really simple process. 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 automatically verifies 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. If you have the totally free card, includes a 0.5% fee. If you have one of their paid cards, there are no fees.
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 journal, I chose to splash out and purchase 1,000 MeliaRewards points for EUR5.
This is what you see in the Currensea app, which shows �,� 4.33 set up to leave my HSBC account a few days later on:.
Converting pounds was pricey.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight robbery that is just about to occur (frequently in a different language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion fees happening in the background. Don’t get me began. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
In current years a handful of fantastic travel debit cards have actually popped onto the scene … and like other terrific cards Currensea guarantees big cost savings (85%) and a great app.
But I think the very best bit might be what no other card does: connects to your existing high street checking account.
What this means is you can spend money you have in your existing current account with less fret about lacking money and the additional action. That does not suggest it is perfect.
In this Currensea evaluation is the excellent, the bad, the unsightly and the options, so that you can choose.
FX markup.
While our premium strategies have no FX markup, we charge a small FX markup on our Vital Strategy of 0.5% per transaction, allowing us to make income from our Important Plan whilst staying much cheaper than other prepaid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM usage over the free amount on all our plans, complete details can be discovered on our rates strategies.
Membership costs.
We charge an annual subscription cost of �,� 25 for our Premium Plan, and �,� 120 for our Elite Strategy. The membership fee also gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Each time you spend with your card we receive a small % of the transaction, known as interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and will not be credited you. Can You Rent A Car With Currensea Card