Pre Pay Euro Card

[Richtea]

Thought I'd better make my first post a decent one. I work in the banking industry (not this company) and cannot understand why financial service companies have not done this before....Hope it will be valuable to you?!:

Caxton FX (Part of Newcastle Building society) has launched a Euro pre-pay MasterCard. Users have to load a minimum of £500 on to the card, which is credited with the equivalent number of euros. The card is free and cash can be loaded online free of charge. It also offers competitive exchange rates and transaction fees.

I see no downside and had quite a bit of hassle on my recent Scalea apartment purchase. Money transaction companies are ok but take time and don't seem to offer the rates these guys do (1.462 at time of writing). Good for using when coming back and paying bills too. Have you tried getting good rates from exchange booths (or even finding them!) or dealing with Scalea banks!!!? You can lock in to a good rate when you are ready to purchase. Yes.. you do have to put at least £500 on the card but this appears to be the only downside. Cash withdrawals abroad are capped at a 2 euro charge. Most Credit Card companies charge (as I work for one!!) 2-3% fee and then at least 21.9% APR per annum! Of course you can use debit cards in Scalea cash machines but still have fees and then you have to get lucky on conversion rates too.

Anyway - As I say, hope this is valuable. I may never write anything else half as decent in the future :-)

Cheers

Rich

oooo forgot heres the web address (if you need it): www.caxtonfxcard.com

[maisy]

Hi Rich
I believe that you can purchase something similar from the Post Offices in the UK. Could be wrong but I think I remember when I went to get some euros they offered me some similar facility.

Cheers
Maisy

[Richtea]

Hi Maisy,

yep - You're right. Ref: The Post Office pre paid card... It costs £10 to purchase and is available in euros, US dollars and sterling. Users will initially need to put £250 on the card (which is good), and subsequent top ups, while free of charge, have to be a minimum of £50 (which is also good).

I think the only stumbling block with this one is that the Post Office will get varying fees/charges when withdrawing cash (dependant on ATM owner but usually £2) and they will pass these on to the user. The user doesn't appear to get a great rate in advance...which can vary from day to day (For comparison 1.439 today rather than 1.462). After doing lots of digging how about this?... a comparison chart on popular ones, mostly by specialists such as Cash2go or Travelex rather than banks - Most seem to charge to buy the card, don't have competitive rates and/or have 'loading' fees...data a little old - useful to check all the same!:

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/medi...ocs/prx252.rtf

In fact - Moneysupermarket do offer comparisons on prepaid cards these days (just tried it and now there are quite a few specialist companies) but again usually inferior rates or fees...worth checking out though. Lastminute.com looks the closest match with no hidden fees however, you pay £6.99 for the card and should you phone them costs 60p per min. The foreign transaction fees look a little steep on most (including this one). Also some don't allow you internet mgmt!!

Thanks again

Rich