Hi! It's Istaria. I am back with another
Fintech video aimed at Europeans.
To start this video is more about the
complementary services that can be used
to boost or access crypto.com's MCO Visa card. If you are not familiar
with this amazing card itself, I suggest
you take a look at the specific video I
made about it earlier. It explains its features and options in
great detail and has value for both
newcomers and crypto.com veterans alike.
Link in the description. Having said that,
let's get on with the video!
As the long-awaited MCO Visa card
from crypto.com has finally landed in
Europe and people have started receiving
them, we do notice that no new launch
usually goes without some sort of
unforeseen events. Exactly the same with
this one. Europe is a diverse place with many
different currencies and payment
processors, which has introduced problems
like topping up your card using the
plethora of non-Euro currencies, as well
as having your card get rejected in
various places when attempting to pay
with it. In addition, some people have had
some problems with their 3DS or Verified
by Visa when trying to make payments
online. I have no doubt that as crypto.com
manages to secure more licenses there is
no need for any additional solutions but
for now, while we are still sort of in
the pioneering and early phase
it's good to take advantage of
complimentary FinTech services to
squeeze every bit of value that you can.
The first problem is obviously that if
you lose a percent or three when topping
up your Visa card via your own bank,
you're throwing away a lot of money,
possibly even ending up in the negatives
when all is said and done. If you have a
high tier card, you'll still come ahead
because of the cashback, but it's far
from an ideal solution. The other problem
is the fact that some payment processors
have incompatibility issues with the
card, as well as due to the nature of
prepaid cards it may not always work in
every location. Having your MCO Visa card and not being able to pay with it leaves
a sour taste in your mouth for sure, as
it's quite literally leaving money on
the table. Luckily for every problem there is a
solution and even better, they are not at
all very demanding
to do. So, first we are tackling the
prepaid problem. In some instances online,
you can use PayPal as a middleman, but
they are as clumsy, arbitrary and greedy
as it gets, so I can't really recommend
them. Just know that they are an option
for stuff like Spotify, if your card
doesn't get accepted by default. You just
have to be real careful with their
options so they don't get to overcharge
you as you do this. They especially like
to mark up their currency conversions to
nearly 5 percent. The real savior here is
Curve, though. It is a somewhat new FinTech
company that links their card with every
card you have which you can then freely
swap between in their easy to use, simple
app. You can even go back in time and
choose to pay with a different card if
your selected card was not the one you
ultimately wanted to use for the
purchase. The acceptance of the Curve
MasterCard is currently better than the
acceptance of the MCO Visa card, so it is
worth it to carry both just in case your
MCO card gets rejected at the vendor.
That way you can still solve your metal
card, but are covered in case the vendor
is not supported. Curve is extremely
easy to set up. In most cases you do not
even need to do any customer or address
verification because it has to be linked
to your regular cards that already have
been verified by the bank that issued
them. As always, there is a referral code,
though it is not nearly as generous as
crypto.com's, it still worth it. You and
me both get five British pounds if you
decide to give it a go, as soon as you
make your first transaction. So, let's
take a look at the app, shall we? Here we
are in the Curve app. The first card here
is a default card that everybody has.
Basically all your benefits and rewards
like referrals or if you use the Curve
cashback, everything like that goes into
this one. You can use it like a normal
card, but because it's pretty hard to
accumulate money on it, it's not super
ideal. I have used it to make a
transaction to Revolut, so I can then
move that money to my real card
the MCO Visa card. In order to do that
you need to have ten pounds because
that's the minimum that Revolut allows
you to transfer. You cannot use the
Curve card to top up your MCO Visa card
directly,
but even if you could, the minimum would
still be 20 so this then is actually
better. Let's get on with this. Here, we
have my real card; the MCO Visa. I have a
couple of other cards. And here we have
another card. And another card. And I'm
going to add a card here, just so you can see how easy it is. So yeah, entering these
card details is pretty easy. All you need
to do is add your regular card and then
click on continue. You will still have to
verify this card, but doing so is very
easy. Once you have all your cards that
you are thinking of using, switching
between them is very easy. You just click
here - Tap to select & pay. And if I
click this, now every time I make a
purchase it's going to charge this card
instead. If I want to make a change, I
will just click on another card. Like
this. Now I'm using this one. And now I'm
going back to the MCO Visa card. There is
one more important thing that you need
to know about this. The MCO card by
default comes in British pounds, and
that's less than ideal. If you use over
500£ per month and you are letting
Curve to do the conversion for you, Curve
will start charging you 2% for the excess. We don't want that to happen so you have to
click here, MCO Visa card currency and then you choose your card's
currency. This has to be the same
currency that you are using in your
everyday life. Every time if you are
going to make another purchase in some
other kind of currency like online or
you go abroad or whatever, you should go
and switch this because you want the
currency conversion to be done by MCO
and not Curve. Here, let's say I made a
mistake with my Lidl purchase earlier
and I'm going to click here and I want
to put this on another card, so I can
just go "Go Back in Time" and then I can
choose any other card here to put it on.
That way Curve will instantly charge my
new card and the MCO Visa card or
whatever card you used originally would
get the money back in a couple of
days. Like mentioned before, there's one
more interesting feature about Curve
that you can take advantage of. This card
here is a US credit card. It's uncommon
in Europe so you probably don't have one
of these, but in case you do it costs 3%
every time I use this in foreign
currency. So, if I'm in Europe and I am I,
can't really use this because the 3%
makes it unusable.
However, since I'm using Curve with it,
Curve is actually going to convert
the EUR into USD so this card never sees
that I'm using Euro and I'm getting charged
in USD, so I don't get the negative 3%.
This is a very handy feature if you have
a card that doesn't have interbank
exchange rates. Just be aware that the
limit is very low at 500£ per
month. But, spending money is impossible
if you can't get any money onto the app
without paying an arm and a leg for it
in the first place. What do you do if
crypto.com doesn't currently support
your currency and your bank is clearly
out to get you? They are in the business
of making money after all, and currency
conversion is a perfect place to do it
because nearly every other bank also
does this. Do know that if your
native currency is supported, so you are
in a country which uses the Euro, you can
skip this part, but if you're not how do
we get around this? We move on to the
last piece of the trifecta: Revolut.
Lately, a lot of rumors about them
locking up your funds for you or
somesuch have been circulating but so
far no one I know has had anything bad
happen to them, so I feel that I can
still recommend this service without
feeling guilty. If you are concerned
about this kind of thing potentially
happening, however, please do a bit of
your own research before you trust them
with your money. When you utilize this
method, your money will stay on their
platform only for a minute but it's still
worth it to be completely sure. First
you'll need to register.
Unlike Curve, you will actually have to
go through the "Know Your Customer"
verification, but people have reported
that getting an account up and running
typically takes only an hour, so it's not
too bad. Once you are set up, you will
already have an account to deposit your
money into. All you need to do after is
the setup of virtual debit card in the app
and you are
good to go. Let's take a look how easy it is to get non-Euro currency onto the card.
So, here we are in Revolut app and the
first thing we do is to click here on
the home page. Add money in your currency. I have British pounds that I'm going to
use for this demonstration, so that's
what I'm going with. So, add money and
here you choose your card and the amount, and then you click on "Add money". Here we
go. I got a notification. I have the money.
The next step here is to exchange said
money, so I'm going to go here. Click on
this button and exchange and I'm going
to exchange it to Euros. And here we go.
We now have Euros on the account instead of the Pounds and this is what you want.
And then, we go to the cards section. We
have my virtual Revolut card and that's
all you need. You don't need to get a
real card and I don't even have a real
card, I just have this virtual one. So, you
click on this eye on the top left corner
and you will then see the whole number
and all the other information you need.
Copy this information to whatever you
want, like a piece of paper or notepad or
whatever and then you go to the app.
I'm going to have to top up. And I'm
going to choose Credit Card. And here I
have three cards listed and the topmost
card happens to be my Revolut card.
I actually had to add another 10 Euros to
the account because I wouldn't be able
to fill this top up otherwise because
it's a minimum of 20 Euros.
Let's try. Yep, no fee, no nothing. Fill the code.
Oh yeah. Success! So basically, I lost
nothing to conversion here. I think that
pretty much covers it, so that's all for
this video, folks. If you like the content
let me know by hitting that like button.
If you are interested in seeing more
videos like this feel free to subscribe
as I intend to cover a lot more topics
regarding the card and how to get most
out of it in the future.
Do drop by in Discord if you haven't
already. We have a nice community there
which can help you with any questions
that may arise. Stay safe and take it easy!
