A brand-new fintech company which I was introduced to previously this year. Currensea Premium Card…
It has actually won a couple of awards over recent months for what it does (offering you a low-cost way to invest abroad) but what I like about is that it is simple 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 absolutely nothing to top-up or prepay. You simply spend as you would on a normal debit card and the money is drawn from your current account– simply without the typical 3% cost.
Oh, and is totally free to obtain, which also helps.
There are likewise some interesting travel benefits if you select a paid strategy, but the complimentary strategy works fine. You can use here.
There is a service model in fintech which Curve, Revolut, Monzo and so on have actually all followed:
launch by doing one thing well, and totally free or less expensive than the competition
add increasingly more features which your existing consumers do not actually need or desire
add costs, constraints or charges to the feature that made people get your product in the first place, removing any competitive advantage
is currently still in Phase 1 of this procedure and will ideally remain there. Curve, Revolut and Monzo are already in Stage 3 …
is simple 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? Currensea Premium Card
It is a free direct debit card to use abroad and which immediately recharges 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 company 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 require a card, unless you want free ATM withdrawals. You can stop reading now.
Credit cards which offer benefits and charge 0% FX charges are few and far in between. The only ‘points and miles’ choices which offer a partial solution are the Virgin Atlantic charge card which have 0% FX costs 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 affect your credit report by getting another charge card particularly to utilize abroad
you want an item which allows you to make �,� 500 of foreign currency ATM withdrawals per month without any charges and just a very little FX mark-up (there is a little charge beyond �,� 500).
you want a product for you, your adult children, moms and dads, partner or anyone else in your life who needs a simple, easy to understand payment card that will save them money when taking a trip.
How does work in practice?
It is, as I said earlier, an extremely 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 bank account bank immediately verifies that you have enough cash in your account and authorises the transaction.
The deal goes through at either the interbank rate or the Mastercard rate, depending upon the currency. If you have the totally free card, adds a 0.5% cost. There are no fees if you have one of their paid cards.
You get an automatic invest notification through the app, if you select to install it.
The money is taken from your current account a couple of days later.
Here is an example. With no 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:.
Converting pounds was pricey.
A pet peeve of mine is when ATMs forewarn you about the daylight break-in that is just about to happen (frequently in a different language) while not telling you about the exorbitant currency conversion fees occurring in the background. Do not get me began. Anyway back to the positives for a bit anyhow.
In recent years a handful of terrific travel debit cards have popped onto the scene … and like other excellent cards Currensea guarantees big cost savings (85%) and a terrific app.
I think the finest bit might be what no other card does: links to your existing high street bank account.
What this indicates is you can spend money you have in your existing current account with less stress over lacking cash and the extra action. That does not suggest it is ideal.
In this Currensea review is the excellent, the bad, the awful 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 Important Strategy of 0.5% per deal, allowing us to make revenue from our Necessary Strategy whilst remaining much cheaper than other pre-paid cards and high-street debit cards. We also charge an FX markup on ATM use over the complimentary quantity on all our plans, complete information can be found on our prices strategies.
Subscription fees.
We charge a yearly membership charge of �,� 25 for our Premium Strategy, and �,� 120 for our Elite Plan. The subscription fee also gets rid of all FX markup on deals.
Interchange.
Every time you spend with your card we get a small % of the deal, called interchange, this comes straight from the merchant and won’t be charged to you. Currensea Premium Card