“Mastercard recognises the excellent value that the Currensea proposition can bring to the UK marketplace, and will be offering a full range of support”
Kelly Devine, Division President, UK & Ireland
The inspiration behind Currensea came in 2017 when two ex-investment bankers sat down after coming back from family summer holidays, both having been burned by charges on their overseas spend.
James, with a long background in forex and building electronic trading platforms, and Craig, a former CTO of Investment Banking at JPMorgan and the chief engineer of Open Banking across the UK’s largest retail bank, felt there had to be a better way.
What if they could develop a multi currency card that connected straight to an existing bank account but eliminated the banks' charges whilst bypassing the need to open up and manage challenger bank accounts or prepaid travel cards?
And so the concept of Currensea was born…
Currensea is the world’s first Card-Based Payment Instrument Issuer (CBPII) offering - a watershed PSD2 regulation launched in Sept 2019. Working closely with MasterCard, the FCA and Open Banking, the team was the first in the world to develop the technology to enable a 3rd party card debit card to connect to existing bank accounts using open banking, thereby unlocking the full potential of Currensea.
Currensea is a Mastercard Principal Member and authorised by the FCA.
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“Mastercard recognises the excellent value that the Currensea proposition can bring to the UK marketplace, and will be offering a full range of support”
Kelly Devine, Division President, UK & Ireland
"The Currensea proposition is potentially a real game changer in retail banking, allowing retail banking clients to maintain their existing bank account and relationship whilst at the same time benefiting from the science of Fintech. A real win:win for incumbent banks and their clients with an enormous potential market. The simplicity of the solution for the user is perhaps its strongest feature whilst at the same time bringing genuine transparency of pricing".
Jon Bowring, Head of Professional & Financial Services Santander Corporate & Commercial Banking
“The team at Currensea have delivered a revolutionary programme that delivers a cost-efficient and sustainable structure through direct integration with the Open Banking framework. This allows them to provide their users with an account that helps them manage and save their money, as well as giving the user the chance to have environmental impact by ringfencing the savings they make to offset their carbon footprint. Genius!"
Neil Harris, Group Chief Commercial Officer, Global Processing Service
"We are pleased to partner with Currensea, which provides a new way for our customers to earn KrisFlyer miles in the UK. As travel restrictions gradually ease, we hope that KrisFlyer members can benefit not only from travel spending being made easier with Currensea, but also the faster route to travel rewards when travelling more with Singapore Airlines."
To us sustainability is part of running a responsible business and we are working to ensure that we operate in an ethical, transparent and responsible way. Whether that be by making small changes in the office, our supply chain, or by working with charitable organisations - you know that you’re working with a company that cares.
We’ve been awarded our 2022/2023 certificate by Carbon Neutral Britain, officially confirming we're doing our part in offsetting more than we produce through our partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects. Eden work with charities and organisations globally, to offset our carbon footprint by planting trees, supporting local communities in reducing their reliance on fossil fuels, and creating more renewable energy sources.