Why use a currency card

When travelling you have many options for spending money. Most people these days make the mistake of using their normal credit or debit card issued by their bank in their country of residence. While banks do offer some options for customers when abroad, typically the rates offered are not very competitive and the customer often loses out.

For this reason, the popularity of currency cards in the past few years has increased massively. You may be wondering, what is a currency card? Well, in essence a currency card is a card (often VISA or Mastercard) that can be topped up in your currency and then the cash is converted into a currency of your choice. This means that when you use your currency card abroad you are spending in the correct currency of the country that you are visiting.

Just like any traditional card you can make purchases via chip & PIN or withdraw cash from an ATM. It is reccomended to check with the card provider to see if they will apply fees when making transactions. Obviously, another big advantage of using a currency card is the security aspect. Rather than carry large amounts of cash around you can simply pay by card and withdraw from an ATM if you really need to. If you lose your card you can cancel and freeze the card/PIN. There are even some cards where this can be done from an app on your mobile.

In summary, currency cards are the best option for those concearned about safety and saving money while abroad. Check out the different types of currency cards here before you travel!