The Curve card is aiming to change the game of travel, starting with eliminating hidden card fees. Other challengers – notably Revolut – offer similar services, so how does the Curve proposition stack up? Douglas Blakey reports
The Curve card and associated app allow customers to add all their debit and credit cards into one Mastercard, with users able to switch the card they wish to use for any given payment.
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Curve is now targeting consumers who use their bank card to spend money abroad. Incumbent banks can charge cardholders up to 5% to spend their money outside the UK.
Curve is eliminating these charges so consumers can avoid buying currency in advance, and instead access the market exchange rate with no hidden fees.
There is, however, an initial cap of up to £500 per rolling month, with a 1% fee thereafter; in November this will rise to 2%.
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By GlobalDataThe only card to pack?
Curve claims it is the only fintech to give customers the ability to spend abroad on any of their current Visa and Mastercard debit and credit cards, and avoid any of the currencyexchange fees they are usually charged.
It allows cardholders to sync all their cards and spend via the Curve card. Every time a user makes a payment with Curve, the card of their choosing is charged. There are, however, caps on free ATM use.
Curve has a free cash-withdrawal cap of £200 ($262) for Curve Blue customers, and £400 for Black customers, on all major currencies. There is a flat £2 fee, or 2%, for withdrawals above the cap. Curve Black customers are charged £50 to open an account, while the Blue account has no such opening fee.
As an incentive to upgrade to the Black account, Curve offers 1% cashback from retailers including Amazon, Uber, Selfridges, Sainsbury, Waitrose and Ocado, subject to an annual £15,000 cap.
Curve versus Revolut
Curve customers receive a notification each time they spend with Curve, showing amounts spent in their home and local currencies for each transaction. A similar feature is available by rival Revolut.
Curve’s zero-conversion-fee service extends to more than 150 global currencies, which it says further differentiates its proposition. By contrast, Curve notes that Revolut supports less than 30 currencies. Curve states that over 80% of UK travellers spend less than £500 abroad per month, and estimates that using the Curve Blue card abroad could save customers up to £25 per trip.
However, Curve has its work cut out to attract the levels of positive PR and customer acquisition growth enjoyed by Revolut. Curve claims to have grown customer numbers to over 250,000.
Between January and December 2017, Revolut increased its revenue from £2.4m to £12.8m and increased monthly transaction volumes from $200m to $1.5bn. Revolut reported a loss of £14.8m in fiscal 2017.
It now has close to 3 million users, opening 7,000 new accounts per day and is now processing $3bn in monthly volumes.
