Metal credit cards have been all the rage for a couple years in the US (particularly the Chase Sapphire Reserve), and the trend seems to be making its way to Europe this year—but rather for debit and prepaid cards. Unlike in the US, the European metal cards all seem to have NFC support.
These have already launched or are confirmed to be launching very soon:
N26 Metal — Debit card, free travel/car rental/phone insurance, free WeWork membership, etc — €16.90/mo Revolut Metal — Prepaid card, bare-bones travel health insurance, concierge service, etc: €13.99/mo Curve — Pricing & features not yet known, launching December for UK/Ireland, rest of Europe in H1 2019
Have you seen others?
What do you think of this trend, and do you have any experience with any of these cards yet?
This is a prepaid debit card with $50,000 load limit.
Anyone with a valid passport and utility bills can get this card shipped to their addresses.
You can spend only the amount you load to this card.
I think it looks like a good deal. It’s an alternative option to online banking.
They’re in Gibraltar and this card ships with android & iOS apps.
You may want to make a list of these prepaid cards too. They’re similar to N26, LeoPay in many ways.
This card can be loaded using wire transfer.
and there are Cryptocurrency VISA cards which are obviously the same.
These cards can be issued to anyone in EU. You can load the card using fiat, PayPal or crypto currency and use the card anywhere VISA is accepted.
These cards are helpful for nomads who are using crpytocurrency.
Their metal mastercard works anywhere mastercard is accepted.
However their site looks a little scammy…
No credit check required to open an account.
They give you bank account routing number upon opening an account. You can load amount of cash you want to use.
Here’s a list of other prepaid cards which are as useful as normal bank cards:
Compared to the Chase Sapphire Reserve, it contains a bit more metal. In the CSR, the metal is sandwiched between two layers of plastic, while the Revolut card only has a plastic layer on the back of the card. While the front kind of looks like brushed steel, that effect is just painted/glued on. The Revolut and Mastercard logos are cutouts (so they are actually made of metal).
Overall, I think it looks a bit better than the CSR. I haven’t yet gotten my hands on a N26 Metal or Curve Metal, so can’t really make a comparison with those yet.
N26 Metal — Debit card, free travel/car rental/phone insurance, free WeWork membership, etc — €16.90/mo
Revolut Metal — Prepaid card, bare-bones travel health insurance, concierge service, etc: €13.99/mo
Curve — Pricing & features not yet known, launching December for UK/Ireland, rest of Europe in H1 2019
