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Originally Posted by WideReceiver
Anyone use or familiar with the Wise card for foreign currency? What’s the advantage over credit cards?
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I’m a fan of Wise, and have used it in Scotland, Ireland, and Italy. It works nearly flawlessly at every vendor - just tap and go, just like what you’re used to at home.
The big advantage is that you can exchange currency at a better rate than with credit cards. And they are upfront about the fees. The issue with traditional credit cards is that they either a) charge a currency exchange fee (often 2.5 or 3%), or b) they bury a currency exchange fee into their exchange rate (again 2.5 or 3%), or c) both! So even if you have a card that does not charge to pay in foreign currency, have a look at their published rate and it will be marked up, so you’re still paying for it.
Wise gives you the mid-market rate and then adds a small fee, and they are transparent about it.
You can either pre-convert money into a different currency and hold it, or you can keep everything in CAD and when you spend, it will convert it on the fly. You can hold balances in multiple currencies at once. If you are spending in Euros, Wise will deduct from your Euros first. If you have none in your account, it will take from the highest balance of another currency and convert on the fly.
I found Wise to be particularly handy when travelling as a group. Suppose you need to split a dinner bill and you owe someone in your party 20 EUR, you can just send them 20 EUR from your balance, without any fees. No need to convert to CAD in your head, send them an e-transfer, etc. And then when someone owes you something, it goes right into your EUR balance and you can spend it. No converting happens, formally or informally.
If you’re able to convince others in your party to get Wise, it will make life easier.
Because it is a Visa Debit card, you can only spend what you have on it. You can also move money from your balance into a “jar”. The jar is the term that they use to keep money safe from unauthorized tapping. So maybe keep a few hundred in your “balance” that you can use freely, and maybe keep your larger wad in a “jar” so if you lose your card, you won’t get tapped into oblivion. You can move it back and forth freely with the app.
You can even withdraw a little bit of cash using Wise, but there are limits and some fees once you pass a certain threshold. But in all honesty, I went on a trip to Scotland and used Wise for everything except tipping the tour bus driver, and paying a private taxi driver in cash (which I withdrew). Literally everywhere else was tapping with Wise. And even if you do withdraw cash with Wise, it is still cheaper than doing it from your regular bank account. I did have my dad with me, who has a UK-based account and debit card, so he was my backup if Wise let me down. But it never did.
Of course, some countries are still more cash-based. In Europe, they tap everywhere like we do. Other countries may vary, so you may want to have more backup cash.
If renting a car somewhere, I would still use your traditional credit card because of the insurance.
There are some other benefits, like getting a bank account number in a foreign currency so others can pay you via bank transfer. I could see it being handy if you freelanced for a foreign company and they wanted to pay you in their currency - you could give them the banking details and they could deposit it in the native currency, and you could convert it more cheaply, or hold it in that currency if you wanted to. Not something that I have used, but I could see if being useful.
So yes, I am a Wise fanboy, and no I don’t work for them.
I have used it in Scotland, Ireland, and Italy, and my folks have taken their to Mexico, Portugal, England, and probably more places, and it hasn’t let anyone down yet.
Let me know if you (or others) have any questions about how it works and I’ll be happy to try and answer. And if it gets too boring for this thread, PM is also fine.