Banking Without Borders
00:04:02 · Jonny Pease, Jan Watermann
[00:04:02] S0: Obviously, from a rewards perspective, and I really think very strongly that you should be rewarded for your spending, considering you know, banks, merchants are making money from every time you tap your card, so why shouldn't you as a result? So from a yeah, obviously from a rewarding your spending perspective, this sucks. Clearly. You're not going to be rewarded anymore. But arguably, Jan, from a travel spending perspective, it still sits really high up the table, doesn't it? You know, if you think about it from a weekday spending, if you're using this card and you're spending in a foreign currency, you're getting the interbank rate, which is as good as it gets. You know, that you know, why's offer the interbank rate, but every time there's an exchange, there's a variable fee. So trading two on two sits above. As an international spending card, and even for withdrawing money internationally, and it's still significant, isn't it? I think you you get up to 400 pounds or 400 euros, if I'm if I'm not wrong, of ATM withdrawals with this card as well. It's modern Revolut has to offer. [00:04:57] S1: And some plans. [00:04:59] S0: It is, isn't it? [00:05:00] S1: Some paint plans.
00:05:00 · Jan Watermann, Jonny Pease
[00:05:00] S1: Some paint plans. [00:05:01] S0: Shocking. That's shocking. Um, so I think in certain subsets of areas of the world, depending on what's available to you, yes, this might still be an outstanding card for travel. You know, personally, I can get rewarded from in the UK at least from Lloyd's Ultra, for example, when spending internationally or domestically. I can get 1% cash back. So that would arguably be better. Although, Jan, if we get into the weeds here and forgive me if you're watching or listening to this, you know, one could say, well, Lloyd's Ultra offers MasterCards FX rates. Trading two on two is the interbank rate, which means I'm gonna have to pay a slight markup on MasterCards rates and then offset that against my cash. But it's minor, in the end, it might just be on deposit scout.com right now. I'll put a link in the description box, but we have a travel cards page and we have a rewards cards page, and we do get into the nuance and the detail there. So if you are someone that really wants to look at what the differences could be on spending internationally with trading two on two or spending with um, you know, like a Lloyd's Ultra that's using the MasterCard FX rate, you can have a look at that on Trading 212. I'll put a link in the description box below for you. But Jan, there are, of course, there are of course in the European Union and in the UK options available for people that have unfortunately now not got a reward card to spend with, right? And and we we want to lay that out for people.
00:06:20 · Jan Watermann, Jonny Pease
[00:06:20] S1: Yeah, let me do that, Jonny. Um hope isn't lost. Trade Republic, for example, um, is really, really competitive. And I think it's quite quite similar to what trading 212 has to offer. So they're offering 1% of save back. Um, it's essentially cashback that's being invested into an investment vehicle you have to select beforehand, and that's kept at 15 euros per month. I think that's somewhat competitive, right? Um, probably the best uh option that's available in a lot of countries um that's not crypto related, at least the best I can think of. If you have any other idea, any other thoughts, uh feel free to write that into the into the comments below. So 15 euros you can earn a month, that's the absolute maximum, and you can make the math. If you really max that card out, that's 180 euros a year. I think that's pretty competitive. So that's a good option. And besides that, we um we have sum up, which is also available in the European Union, pretty competitive as well. [00:07:12] S0: Yes.
00:07:12 · Jonny Pease, Jan Watermann
[00:07:12] S0: Yes. [00:07:13] S1: SumUp offers uh, I believe it's 2% on supermarkets and groceries, and then half a percent on everything else. Plus, there's a feature that you get uh 5%, I believe it was on merchants that um yeah, when you transact with merchants that use the sum up card terminal. So the sum up card terminal very popular among small business owners. You'll see that in cafes typically, maybe small restaurants, right? Because it's really easy to use. Um, and every time you transact with this card reader, you'd get five percent. And it can be huge, especially if you're often dining out in cafes. Um, you know, you really enjoy your life, let's say, let's call it like that. I think that can be a really, really attractive option. Um, one thing to keep in mind though, Jonny, I think the cap is 10 euros a month of cashback every 30 days. [00:07:59] S0: Yeah, UK and EU. Yeah, 10 pounds, 10, 10 euros. [00:08:02] S1: You want to talk about crack next? [00:08:04] S0: Yeah, crack, crack, crack, crack. Also available in the UK and in the EU. Do they differ at all in the options? I think it's pretty much the same across both networks. [00:08:13] S1: I think it's the same, yeah.
00:08:14 · Jonny Pease
[00:08:14] S0: Krak is an interesting product, it has a number of benefits beyond the cashback opportunities that you can earn. But ultimately the cashback you can earn on a crack card is gonna be dependent on how much money you can invest in Kraken, how much money you can deposit within your account. And if you want to get 2% cashback, which is the top tier, you're gonna have to deposit 50k yan, which I think is it's a big ask. It's a big ask. Look, I mean try it. It that yeah, there's a couple of things to weigh up there. It's like, well, there's also some risk associated with investing in Kraken. You know, look at what just happened to Binance, that doesn't help, but you're not gonna get deposit protection. Um you know, you're gonna get deposit protection on savings accounts, whether you're in the UK or in the EU. You know, and then if you if you go down to a smaller deposit number, say if you deposit 10,000 pounds, you get 1.5% cash back. If you deposit £1,000, you get 1% cash back. So if you want to match what trading 2 1 and 2 are offering, you're gonna have to hit 10k. Then you're gonna have to ask the question well, that comes with risk, okay. And what if I put 10k into a savings account? How much interest can I earn on that? Uh savings accounts in the EU aren't that competitive. Here in the UK, we know look at depositscout.com, you can earn 5% on 10k quite easily and earn 500 quid across a year. Ugh, you know, what are crack gonna pay you on a thousand pounds spent a month across a year? They're gonna pay you 180 pounds on 1.5%. They're gonna match trading two on two for you, but you could earn that in interest on the 10k that you've deposited in Kraken. Is that making sense? Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, Jonny.
00:09:43 · Jan Watermann, Jonny Pease
[00:09:43] S1: I appreciate your holistic view on this. I really appreciate that because a lot of people, I think they, you know, they get sidetracked, they see that number, um, and then they get tempted to sign up, deposit that money, but they don't really think about the the interest they're literally missing out on, um, in most cases, at least. Obviously, their workarounds to earn interest through through stable coins, for example, you can also do through kraken, but yeah, it's not a savings account, it's not as competitive as a savings account. So, yeah, really have to have a holistic view when choosing this kind of product, in my opinion. [00:10:13] S0: It just goes to show how powerful that trading two-on-two card was, wasn't it? Because even if you were having to invest the money, there was no fee, there was no question, there was no uh small print of what you needed to do to get that rate. You were just given it. I don't want to ponder on this too much because I know we're losing it, and I know a lot of people are really sad about this. You know, when you when you start to look way up what our options are, it really does go to show how good it was. Here in the UK, Jan, Chase UK sticks out, doesn't it? Um, we've all heard about it, we'll know about it. They're offering, they're paying as much as 2% on certain categories of spending. I just think that we all know about this, Jan. Do we need to talk about it too much?