I have this card as well, I mainly use it for overseas ATM withdrawals as it reimburses all ATM fees. It has no foreign transaction fees as well and uses the visa rate. It doesn’t support Apple Pay or even have contactless. They provide a chequebook as well for the account, I also requested a chequebook cover which they kindly sent as well.
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Yeah it is linked to your brokerage account where you can keep cash in. Only the brokerage account is available for international clients.
I think you can do ACH transfers into the account using the account number on the checkbook (well, it is American 
) and the routing number in the app. Not sure if it’s faster than the DD approach.
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An ACH transfer has additional fees and defeintly won’t be faster than DD. I either top up by wiring GBP to their UK account or via Direct Debit through the Wise USD account. They both take about a day or two to arrive.
I’ll stick to the Wise DD then. I miss faster payments 
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You can also transfer from Schwab to your Wise USD balance fee free and convert to GBP if you need to withdraw from your Schwab account. Other options would be to withdraw from an ATM but our ATM’s being fee free kinda defeats the purpose of the card.
They’re not all fee free. Mainly charging in shop based ones I find. How does the fee refund work and how long does it take? Too cold at the moment to nip out and get the £0.99 back from the one round the corner
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Looks very mid 2000s. Shame they don’t use the same or similar design as the Charles Schwab Bank one.
Nice to have a backup US checking account though.
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All bank ones are fee free as well pretty much all store ones. The only ones I’ve seen with fees are random ones by gas stations or independent stores. They reimburse the ATM fees at about the same time the transcation is settled, around 2 days. The checking account however only reimburses them at the end of the month.
Would be good for visiting countries where ATMs are expensive and cash is necessary. Thailand for instance comes to mind, though it wouldn’t be the only one, where it’s about £5 per withdrawal.
Do they get cranky if you use it like a bank account without doing any actual brokerage-ing?
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It’s very useful for those sort of countries indeed. No they don’t seem to care, I’ve never owned any stocks with them and I know others who never have as well and only use its checking features.
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If you are using it as an investment account, it’s one of the few in the UK which operate with margin i.e. you can borrow money to buy more shares.
After relocating to Germany for work I’ve had the chance to extend my card collection. I’ll add a few more German cards here. I see no point in uploading UK / US cards which have been shown before. 
I think my German Savings Banks (“Sparkasse”) debit card from Munich got some attention on the last thread. Sparkasse in Frankfurt has regular branches, but also runs a branchless direct bank “1822”. I like both designs although the Frankfurt skyline wins it for me.
The red debit card is from the Sparkasse for the counties around Cologne. That debit card design seems to be the standard one which most Sparkasse pick if they don’t care about individual card art.
Then Openbank by Santander is also a branchless bank here in Germany, a bit like HSBC’s First Direct.
And finally the brand new Lufthansa Miles & More branded credit card recently launched by Deutsche Bank (there are a wide variety of card designs based on ones frequent flyer status level).
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I think it’s fair to say that German graphic design trends are quite different from the UK’s. That 1822direkt skyline card feels quite mid-2010s to me
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The only decent one there is the OpenBank, probably because it’s so minimal 
I don’t see why OpenBank dont come to the UK.
UK is very big on fintechs and no branch banks now. I think OpenBank would do well over here.
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Santander is my least favourite design, I think it’s the red. The cards are not for me. The app is ok, limited notifications though, they can notify of a refund but can’t on a spend 
surely they use the same system to understand both 
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I liked the old Santander Design. The embossed red card. Santander International used to be a red embossed card before they made it gold and rebranded the account as the “Gold Island Account”
That 1822 direkt looks like a 90s trance album cover
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Quite like the Köln and grey 1822. The 1822direkt looks awful and the Openbank is bland 
Great to see some international cards back in the thread