As a new found collector of challenger bank accounts the new #fintech Curve (@imaginecurve) it was an obvious must have.
When I heard about this “magic” proxy card, one card to hold all your other cards, I was in awe. How natural and simple idea that fit my case perfectly.
Due to the new found “card collector” hobby my wallet started to look like a deck of cards. My three local bank cards (combination of debit, credit, VISA MasterCard) plus my Revolut, Transferwise and Monese cards all bulged my wallet.
You can see why the idea of a proxy card looked very appealing.
Curve is not a bank and they never intend to be one. They describe themselves as a financial application with a proxy card : “Curve simplifies your financial life by connecting your accounts to one smart card and an even smarter app.”
What is the application+ card basically do:
- you can register all your cards in the Curve application
- spend from any of your accounts using just one Curve Mastercard®.
- select the cards that you would like to pay with using Curve by simply opening the Curve app and tapping a bank card
- no hidden fees and no top-up.
- one killer feature: go back in time and switch the card you use. So even after you paid with one card you can revert the operation and charge it on a different card.
- all the benefits of tracking transactions made with several cards in one single place.
- cashback on selected merchants. For the free tier this is only for 3 moths. Interesting that here they compete with a total different market, the loyalty cards market.
- cashback points are called curve cash and there is a virtual card holding them that can be set as the active card when you want to spend the points.
- there is a Curve Send / Curve Transfer (BETA) that will allow the curve application to act as a wallet so you can easy transfer (Revolut style) money to your friends with a Curve wallet.
Pricing:
- there is a free tier
- there is a premium tier with a black card €9.99 per month and unlimited cashback
- there is a premium tier with a metal card €14.99 per month and unlimited cash-back
- More detail about the tier differences here
Card:
I had some problems with the mail delivery of the card (my card got lost twice in the mail).
The presentation as always as you expect from a fintech, very cool.
A black envelope containing a sliding case with a slick black logo on it.
Also the design of the card is very well done.
The free tier card is a dark blue with a metal look.
I like the “social media” friendly design (like Monese cards) where all the data of the card is on the back of the card, so I can safely post a picture with the card.
The future:
I think this is one of the best fintech ideas I have see this year that is very nicely applied in the market. There is a huge potential and I think if they keep up the good work they will be big. They are still in their early stages and the “fly wheel” is not on its maximum speed yet. They still have a lot of explosive development potential.
The first sign that they are a good fit to the market is their CrowdCube investing round. Curve wanted to crowd fund 1 million pounds and ended up being over-funded with 5.5 million pounds see here .
I liked how they wanted to validate themselves with a crowd fund investing round right after they received several tens of millions of investment from VCs. What a great way to promote yourself and create loyalty from your customers.
As a disclaimer, due to this CrowdCube investing round I became an ImagineCurve share owner myself 🙂 I would have loved to be able to do the same for Revolut, TransferWise and Monese without being a VC with millions to spare.
If you want to become a Curve card owner sign up with code D5663OBN & get £5 https://curve.page.link/zTGt
Update: Finally in 06/05/2020 in full lock-down mode due to the f…ing virus that goes around Europe I got my Investor card 🙂
The nice new features of the Investor card:
Front
- RED, as you can see above a beautiful red card
- No card number on the front, just the chip and the new MasterCard logo
- A very simple and imposing “Investor.” on the front. This is already like the ultimate swag card 🙂
Back
- RED, as you can see even the magnetic strip is red 🙂
- no card number, no CCV on the back of the card, just my name in big letters.
Definitely the most secure card ever. All the card data are available only in the Curve application.