Company: Currensea
Founder: James Lynn
Website: https://www.currensea.com/
About Currensea
Originally launched as a B2C proposition before expanding the offering in 2021, travel debit card Currensea provided a simple and cost-effective solution to the problem UK holidaymakers face when spending abroad. UK travellers are currently wasting a staggering £2.7bn in foreign exchange fees every year by using their bank cards abroad – the Currensea card offers travellers savings of 85%-100% on overseas spending by removing the normal foreign exchange fees leveraged by banks and other card providers. Using open banking, the Currensea debit card connects to a user’s existing bank account so there is no need to open a new account.
Currensea’s card avoids the issues that existing payment solutions all presented – funds needed to be transferred, cards needed topping up, separate balances needed to be tracked. Ultimately, this is hugely inconvenient and ends up with travellers paying extortionate fees when spending on their cards abroad or withdrawing cash from an overseas ATM. Currensea acts as an additional layer on a user’s bank account so they can spend directly from their existing current account when abroad. This makes it easier than ever before for travellers to maximise their holiday savings by slashing FX fees.
Currensea is also the UK’s first open banking debit card platform – it allows organisations outside of financial services to offer branded debit cards that connect to users’ existing bank accounts. This approach creates a simple solution for organisations looking to broaden their customer engagement.
Through its unique ‘Powered by’ offering, Currensea partners with other organisations empowering them to issue branded cards to their supporters, employees or customers so they can make charity donations every time they spend at home or abroad. This is made possible by Currensea’s open banking approach which simplifies the donation process allowing users to donate directly from their debit account whenever they spend. Current partners include Dogs Trust, Royal Marines Charity, Knight Frank, Royal Society of Medicine and Royal Trinity Hospice with many more to come during 2023.
The opportunities this programme presents to organisations is one of the major factors behind Currensea’s selection for Mastercard’s Start Path Open Banking programme, an award-winning, global start-up engagement program, in Q4 2022.
In addition to saving money, Currensea users can support the sustainability causes they care about every time they spend. Users can opt to automatically donate some of their savings to environmental projects – this has led to holidaymakers removing over 3m plastic bottles from the ocean and planting over 100,000 trees!
