Chase Debit Card

[Klárika1]

Has anyone used a Chase debit card in Europe ?

 

[Figaro]

Saw this advertised recently, they seem to be chasing (sorry for the pun) a foothold in the UK banking market. I think they offer interest on credit balance so might be worth investing

 

[Klárika1]

I ordered debit card as they don't charge fees when using abroad. Narwest charge 2.75% every transaction, it can soon mount up if going away for long period's.

 

[Dorset Diver]

They do charge fees when using your card abroad - but!

They clearly state:

• no ATM fees applied by us
• no fees applied by us for spending or withdrawing money abroad

What they don't mention is you may have charges applied by the foreign bank you use especially when withdrawing cash.

 

[Minxy]

Saw this advertised recently, they seem to be chasing (sorry for the pun) a foothold in the UK banking market. I think they offer interest on credit balance so might be worth investing

They don't give interest on the current account (CA) but if you 'round up the change' you get 5% which sounds impressive but bearing in mind this is only on very small amounts, literally the change from your transaction up to the nearest £1, it's not gonna earn much. but they also have a 1.5% easy access saver however you can currently get 2.02% interest with a Virgin CA on £1,000 and also have a linked saved at 1.71% however you don't get free ATM withdrawals abroad with Virgin CA.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Minxy]

They do charge fees when using your card abroad - but!

They clearly state:

• no ATM fees applied by us
• no fees applied by us for spending or withdrawing money abroad

What they don't mention is you may have charges applied by the foreign bank you use especially when withdrawing cash.

That's the same with all cards when used abroad as it's the ATM providers who determines if they'll apply a fee for using their services, none of the card issuers have any control over that. If there is going to be a fee they have to inform you when you use the ATM before you continue to get the cash out.

 

[Klárika1]

Yes that's true you probably will have charges from the foreign bank, but with other cards ie Natwest you paying them as well as the foreign bank. Chase don't charge fee's.

 

[rb62]

Yes,no problem at all and you get a notification every time you use it
also the chancellor has worked out that you get a better return on your spending than Tesco clubcard points

 

[Dorset Diver]

That's the same with all cards when used abroad as it's the ATM providers who determines if they'll apply a fee for using their services, none of the card issuers have any control over that. If there is going to be a fee they have to inform you when you use the ATM before you continue to get the cash out.

Both Dorset Lady and I have clung on to our Santander Zero credit cards. No fees at all, presumably they absorb them. They no longer issue the cards but they do allows us to keep them going.

 

[Minxy]

If you want to use your UK credit card abroad which would normally charge for foreign spending look at Curve which is an intermediary card - you link your card(s) to it and when you use your Curve card they convert the foreign charge to £ so the UK provider views it as a UK transaction thus no fee etc, eg if I use my Tesco credit card for fuel they only see £ so I never get a foreign spending charge with the bonus that I still earn Tesco points!

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Minxy]

Both Dorset Lady and I have clung on to our Santander Zero credit cards. No fees at all, presumably they absorb them. They no longer issue the cards but they do allows us to keep them going.

We have Virgin credit cards, two which originally had 0% interest for purchases for 20 months which has now ended but there is no charge for using it abroad so we've kept them as fall backs just in case. We also have a Virgin 0% transfer cards for 15 months but although there was a 0% on purchases it was only for 3 months I think so we never used it for that as obviously we'd have to pay the 'purchase' balance off by then or be charged interest (not the transfer balance amount).

 

[Dorset Diver]

We have Virgin credit cards, two which originally had 0% interest for purchases for 20 months which has now ended but there is no charge for using it abroad so we've kept them as fall backs just in case. We also have a Virgin 0% transfer cards for 15 months but although there was a 0% on purchases it was only for 3 months I think so we never used it for that as obviously we'd have to pay the 'purchase' balance off by then or be charged interest (not the transfer balance amount).

We always pay our CC's of in full each month, so no issue there. There is also a trick to getting cash without fees whilst abroad with the Zero card. Withdraw the money with the CC, which as a cash withdrawal begins to attract interest immediately. Then that same day pay off the CC account by transferring cash from your debit account negating the interest charge. We are off soon so a couple of days ago I double checked with Santander that the above is still possible and was given the . Commercial / Bank rate exchange rates and no fees.

 

[Figaro]

If you want to use your UK credit card abroad which would normally charge for foreign spending look at Curve which is an intermediary card - you link your card(s) to it and when you use your Curve card they convert the foreign charge to £ so the UK provider views it as a UK transaction thus no fee etc, eg if I use my Tesco credit card for fuel they only see £ so I never get a foreign spending charge with the bonus that I still earn Tesco points!

That's interesting, I just took a quick look at curve, is it the basic free card you can use for that ?
I tried to find the currency conversion rate but not obvious where those t&C's are, is the conversation rate decent, I'm sure it will be knowing your canny instincts lol

 

[Minxy]

We always pay our CC's of in full each month, so no issue there. There is also a trick to getting cash without fees whilst abroad with the Zero card. Withdraw the money with the CC, which as a cash withdrawal begins to attract interest immediately. Then that same day pay off the CC account by transferring cash from your debit account negating the interest charge. We are off soon so a couple of days ago I double checked with Santander that the above is still possible and was given the . Commercial / Bank rate exchanges and no fees.

Yes, I was just explaining why we still have the 'old' purchase cards as well as the 'new' transfer cards in case anyone was wondering - I'm not trying to get 50 to create a pack of cards to be able to play snap with!

One thing that you have to watch with balance transfer credit cards, if you max out your transfer allowance, eg the credit is £2,000 and you can do a max transfer of 95% = £1,900, although there is still £100 usable for purchases you do NOT always get the usual 'up to' 56 days interest free on purchases as you do with non-transfer cards - our new HSBC one states this quite clearly so we'd have to clear the purchase balance immediately (as you do with your card when getting cash) to prevent being charged interest which would be applied immediately ... I'm not sure if other transfer card providers do the same but if some do I bet it catches a lot of people.

 

[Dorset Diver]

Yes, I was just explaining why we still have the 'old' purchase cards as well as the 'new' transfer cards in case anyone was wondering - I'm not trying to get 50 to create a pack of cards to be able to play snap with!

One thing that you have to watch with balance transfer credit cards, if you max out your transfer allowance, eg the credit is £2,000 and you can do a max transfer of 95% = £1,900, although there is still £100 usable for purchases you do NOT always get the usual 'up to' 56 days interest free on purchases as you do with non-transfer cards - our new HSBC one states this quite clearly so we'd have to clear the purchase balance immediately (as you do with your card when getting cash) to prevent being charged interest which would be applied immediately ... I'm not sure if other transfer card providers do the same but if some do I bet it catches a lot of people.

I have never used balance transfer cards so have no idea. Will take your word for it.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Minxy]

That's interesting, I just took a quick look at curve, is it the basic free card you can use for that ?
I tried to find the currency conversion rate but not obvious where those t&C's are, is the conversation rate decent, I'm sure it will be knowing your canny instincts lol

Yes we have the basic card which has just been tweaked a little so you can now only link 2 cards to it rather than the 5 it was previously I think, not that it's an issue though. They use the Mastercard rate:

Travelling with Chase

You can use your Chase card to pay for things or withdraw cash outside the UK (cash withdrawal limits apply).

www.chase.co.uk

 

[Figaro]

Confused now, is the curve card issued by chase ?
I was interested in linking a Tesco cc to get the points on foreign fuel purchases

 

[DangerMousy]

We use a Barclaycard Rewards card abroad: no fees and no fx loading, plus 0.25% cashback (not a lot, but every little helps ). Pay it off every month so the interest rate doesn't bother us. For cash withdraws we use our Nationwide debit card (again, no fees or fx loading).

 

[Minxy]

I have never used balance transfer cards so have no idea. Will take your word for it.

We didn't use them much ourselves until 2020 and only did so as we needed to pay off our mortgage by April 2021, we needed to do this as due to covid the housing market stagnated so the planned sale of our rental bungalow to pay the mortgage off didn't happen. If we hadn't hit the 0% transfer and 0% purchase cards hard we'd have struggled to pay it off so we applied for all we could get them transferred our existing card balances over paying the minimum required each month, and every purchase, bill etc, even council tax, was paid for on our purchase cards, again minimum payments. We paid the mortgage of in May 2021 (the bank automatically gave everyone with a mortgage due to be settled 6 months grace).

We have now built up sufficient funds to pay off the transfer and purchase 0% cards but it's better not to do this earlier than necessary as we can earn more than 0% by putting them in savings and current accounts. We've also go newer 0% transfer cards so have been able to move some of the balances over to them from the purchase and transfer cards which are due to be paid soonest thus extending the 0% interest period but will always ensure we have enough on hand to pay them off should this become necessary.

 

[Minxy]

Confused now, is the curve card issued by chase ?
I was interested in linking a Tesco cc to get the points on foreign fuel purchases

Sorry, no they're two different things ... I meant to check for Curve but got distracted due to this thread being entitled Chase!

We linked our Tesco card to it and have used it without any issues whilst abroad however don't use it at weekends as you get a 0.5% surcharge on the purchase cost.

As for the rate AFAIK Curve use the interbank exchange rate.

This is now it works: https://brokerchooser.com/digital-banks/reviews/curve

How Curve works​

So how does Curve work, what happens when you link one of your bank cards to the Curve Card and make a purchase? Here are the basics.

• Your Curve Card is linked to an account which stores e-money (issued by Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd), and your payment cards are used to load this e-money account.
• When you use the Curve Card, what actually happens in the background is that you are purchasing e-money for the value of the transaction using your selected payment card.
• This e-money is loaded onto the account linked to your Curve Card and then immediately used to pay for the transaction.
• The transactions made by Curve on your card are classified as eCommerce (online) transactions, with "Curve" as the merchant. Transactions will appear on your statement as 'CRV - Merchant Name.'
• Your card issuer will also receive the MCC (merchant category code), so they can identify your spend categories, and they will also see if the transaction was a cash withdrawal.
• There is no direct arrangement between Curve and any of the issuers/banks, your relationship with your banks and credit card providers remains the same.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Blackadder]

How Curve works​

So how does Curve work, what happens when you link one of your bank cards to the Curve Card and make a purchase? Here are the basics.

• Your Curve Card is linked to an account which stores e-money (issued by Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd), and your payment cards are used to load this e-money account.

I thought Wirecard was insolvent due to €1.9 billion going missing - hence my Post Office card was replaced by a JaJa. Is it still operating?

 

[Minxy]

I thought Wirecard was insolvent due to €1.9 billion going missing - hence my Post Office card was replaced by a JaJa. Is it still operating?

That was a link to give info on how it works in a 'review' done by a third party which although supposedly a 2022 review obviously was an older one that hasn't been fully updated. This is the info on what Curve did to sort the issue - they are now using Checkout.com.

How Curve got back on track after Wirecard fallout

In June 2020, the FCA acted overnight to freeze customer accounts across UK fintech firms including Curve, Pockit, Soldo, Anna Money and Holvi, after Wirecard Card Solution’s (WCS) parent company filed for insolvency in Germany.

www.finextra.com