If you’re going abroad, the most important thing is thinking about how to carry money for your trip abroad.
For your vacation or business trip, the Prepaid Travel Card or Forex card will be with you. It is the most convenient and inexpensive way to carry your money abroad.
For your best vacation or business trip, 7 advantages of using Forex card will explain a lot for you.
1. Forex Cards Offer Better Exchange Rates
Forex cards load currencies than buy foreign currency as cash. For banks providing Forex Cards is the cheaper option. Typically, you’ll get a difference of 50 Paise as exchange rate markup for Forex Card compared to Rs 2 markup for buying US Dollar.
2. Forex Cards Load with Foreign Currency at Locked-In Exchange Rates
If you have loaded 1000 USD in your Forex Card, the value in it will be 1000 USD regardless of fluctuations in INR-USD exchange rate. Thus, they are as the immune to the fluctuation of currency value in the Forex market.
3. Forex Cards are More Secure
In case of Forex Card getting lost or stolen, it can be blocked immediately and the balance in it frozen. The secondary Forex Card issued along with the original can be activated and funds will be transferred.
4. There are Multiple Foreign Currencies
At the same time in a single card, it has 16 popular currencies available. There are Australian Dollars (AUD), Denmark Krone (DKK), Euro (EUR), Hong Kong Dollars (HKD), Japanese Yen (JPY), New Zealand Dollars (NZD), Omani Rial (OMR), Saudi Arabian Riyals (SAR), Singapore Dollars (SGD), Swedish Krona (SEK), Swiss Franc (CHF), Thai Baht (THB), United Arab Emirates Dirhams (AED), United Kingdom Pounds (GBP) and United States Dollars (USD).
5. Forex Cards Have No Additional Charges
Debit and Credit cards when used abroad work at exorbitant exchange rates and would cost you around 5 to 11% extra of the total transaction charge.
6. No Dynamic Currency Conversion Fee
Since Forex Cards are already loaded with the local currency of a foreign country, Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) fee will not be applicable when using them abroad. However, this fee will be present in the case of Debit and Credit cards. DCC would add an extra 3 to 5% charge to your transaction cost.
7. Forex Cards are Universally Recognized and Accepted
Unlike Traveller’s Cheque which has become an outdated payment instrument, Forex Cards can be used to withdraw money from an ATM nearby when abroad.
However, en-cashing Traveller’s Cheque is a big hassle as you’d have to find banks or business establishments willing to accept it. Even taxis in some countries abroad accept Forex Card as a payment method.
In fact, you can even use Forex Card for online transactions abroad, like ordering items through e-commerce platforms abroad. This is possible since they work on either Visa or MasterCard network just like regular Debit and Credit cards.
