FairFX Currency Card Suspended

Donnakou

Hi  I have just received notice from FairFX that the FCA has suspended their Currency Card until further notice. Funds are to be held in a holding account until further notice.. so annoying after all the Covid and travel restrictions, my travel to France on the 26th July has just been confirmed after all the uncertainty. Has anyone had the same message.. what is a good alternative to use at such late notice for Euro.  Really would appreciate some advice. 

Donnakou

Looking into this on FCA website, Wirecard Gmb are insolvent, they provide the card facility to FairFX from what I can understand .. as others, I have an amount of euro ready to use for overseas on this exchange card. Here is the link to the FCA explanation
 https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/requirements-imposed-wirecard-authorisation

Andrea_jardin

Donnakou said:

Hi  I have just received notice from FairFX that the FCA has suspended their Currency Card until further notice. Funds are to be held in a holding account until further notice.. so annoying after all the Covid and travel restrictions, my travel to France on the 26th July has just been confirmed after all the uncertainty. Has anyone had the same message.. what is a good alternative to use at such late notice for Euro.  Really would appreciate some advice. 

Which other cards do you have? People will be able to advise the cheapest option to use based on your current portfolio.

A lot can change in a month in terms of Wirecard / flights / French rules.

Donnakou

I only have the FairFX card, I have looked at Revolut.com, which was recommended by MSE .. not in great detail but I think this is linked to Google pay and you can get a physical card by post for about £6.  I was looking at the Easyjet prepaid card but their service is very poor under the circumstances, sadly. Yes, lots of changes could happen so will leave any currency to last moment I guess, at least I could get a small amount exchanged to put the process in place.  Just found an MSE notice late yesterday about FairFX too, no further information on thia though.

eDicky

A Starling Bank debit card is fee-free overseas and arrives within a few days of opening the account on phone app.

Otherwise just use your regular bank debit card in France, some have higher fees for non-sterling use than others and you haven't told us what you have. It's likely to be cheaper to use than cards such as easyJet and Cash Passport, many of which operate through Wirecard and are also currently frozen.

tony5181

So all my holiday money put onto fairfx card is unavailable to me. How many others in this country have been affected by trusting the fairfx card as a reliable place to hold money.
Fairfx should be going public and tell all their customers how they intend to get their money to them.
I am lucky i buy cash and place money on card for holiday no more, fairfx are obviously untrustworthy and perhaps this should be looked into as to why my money is no longer available to me.
I trust fairfx have pulled all there tv adverts.
I came to this site seeking advice and all i see is that it looks like my holiday money has gone.

Donnakou

So annoying, I am with you tony5181.. I only have about Euro300 loaded ready to go but was about to load up some more as it is payday..  luckily I am still working. I wonder if FairFX would have let me load another Euro 300 on the card... to maybe find out they haven't sorted this.  The FCA can't say whether this is actually not going into a black hole either, very worrying times. 

tony5181

Even more annoying fairfx still selling eurocards as though nothing wrong does this mean people buying cards will also lise out what faith can anyone have with fairfx card in the future if we just lose our money

Donnakou

Flip @eDicky ... I didn't realise Wirecard has all these cards, I did look at Starling Bank, there were a few negatives reviews if I remember, but then nothing is perfect I guess.  I am thinking to change my current account as I have a Santander account which don't really offer much these days, but was going to sort this after my trip. Happy days !

eDicky

Donnakou said:

Flip @eDicky ... I didn't realise Wirecard has all these cards, I did look at Starling Bank, there were a few negatives reviews if I remember, but then nothing is perfect I guess.  I am thinking to change my current account as I have a Santander account which don't really offer much these days, but was going to sort this after my trip. Happy days !

There's no need to switch your bank account to Starling, just open it in addition and see how it goes. I've had mine since they started a few years ago, excellent.

FairFX is not the worst value compared to some of the others, and the Wirecard fiasco is not really a failure of theirs. But any such prepaid card is no place to hold any funds more than briefly, especially when fee-free bank cards are available.

greyteam1959

Donnakou
You say you have a Santander bank account ??
If you have a Santander debit card surely you can withdraw euros from you current account at a Santander ATM with no charge in France.