Curve chat

If you’d like to share your experience using Curve, this is the place to do it.

In case anyone’s not heard of them before, here’s their website -

If you have spotted bugs, please report those to Curve directly :slight_smile:

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So I got myself a Curve card. It’s nice. Now I only have to carry two cards - my Monzo current account and my Curve one, where I’ve added all my credit cards etc :grinning:

Now if I digitise the random business cards I carry around for no particular reason, I may be able to actually ditch my wallet soon :+1:

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I wanted a Curve card but I’m not a small business or self employed so have to wait.

My understanding is that you use the curve card then curve charge whichever card you have added and is active in the app?

Does this mean that every transaction on whichever account is just ‘Curve’ over and over again? Or have they got around this somehow? Wouldn’t it kind of spoil the function of Monzo?

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I haven’t used it for a while, but last time I checked a few months ago it just came up as Curve on Monzo, but legacy banks list it as CRV*SAINSBURYS (if shopping in Sainsburys).

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Yeah, it obfuscates our transaction data, but I don’t plan on using it with Monzo - just with my credit cards and such.

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The thing about Curve is that opening the app and ensuring you have the correct card ‘selected’ to be charged is more hassle than just taking that card out of your wallet and paying with it.

And you lose your Consumer Credit Act rights to sue the credit card company in case things go wrong, as your contract becomes to be with Curve, not the credit card issuer.

The only real benefit was Amex acceptance wherever Mastercard was accepted, but that’s gone now.

Seriously. A ‘solution’ looking for a problem.

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I see what you mean but I’d rather not take those cards with me in the first place. I don’t find it to be a hassle to have the correct card selected, as it won’t be my main card anyway, Monzo is. This is my backup to carry one card instead of another three :ok_hand:t4:

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you can add both your prepay (BIN 535420) and current account (BIN 535522) Monzo cards to Curve…my friend has

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Curve have a feature called ‘Go Back in Time’ which allows the charging card to be changed up to 2 weeks after the transaction took place.

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As someone who has tap with a card before realising I had meant to use a different one more than once, that is pretty awesome.

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if curve sent location data to monzo it would be perfect.

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I didn’t like the fact that they ask for email and password as part of sign up before stating that as an individual I can only add myself to a notification list. Sneaky.

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I was going to suggest the ‘step back in time’ feature is only really a solution to the ‘problem’ of having multiple card accounts operated through one single card; something that using Curve uniquely creates. I was going to suggest surely not many people inadvertently pay for things on the wrong card, but you say you do. Others do too, I’m sure, but I’m not convinced Curve’s answer is a killer USP for this behaviour.

By the way, do you need an app to tell you to get off the wrong bus, and and an app to help you un-celebrate your birthday in the wrong month? :wink:

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Sometimes I use one card when I mean to use another. Like if I want to use a credit card instead of my debit card for a purchase or similar. I don’t know what to tell you - it may not be a problem you’ve ever faced, but I know i’ve done it a couple of times, and could have really done without money leaving one of my accounts.

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For me, the wrong card problem was more related to delayed payments - I’d switch to the card I wanted to be active for my current purchase, leave it on that setting and a previous delayed purchase would present and be taken from that card. I really needed it to remember which card was active when I made the original charge, but that would be difficult to achieve for things like Amazon who take the charge when they ship.

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And we’re back to the whole Curve concept creating problems it then needs to solve. Those things just wouldn’t happen if you didn’t bother with a Curve card.

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This was one of the reasons why I stopped using Curve- I had just two cards in and I never remembered which one I had active- I get so flustered at checkouts because you just have to grab and pack everything quickly + check your phone and wrangle a card out of your wallet?

I tried using it in tandem with the new Tesco PayQiwq thing since it was all on my phone, but their scanners take a million years to actually pick it up and you get a bunch of lovely impatient looks. Took it out of my wallet. If they digitised loyalty cards eg Starbucks, Tesco, all in one app/card then I’d have reason to use it, but otherwise it’s more hassle than it’s worth and doesn’t give me location/ category data

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I’ve got one but I’ve only ever used it once just to try it out. Definitely a solution looking for a problem. However a curious thing I noticed - my cash withdrawal location was correctly displayed on my Starling (haven’t tried with Monzo yet) card so it seems that at least some transaction data is present.

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would be great if Curve used monzo api so all transaction data could be sent.

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I have been using Curve since the early days of their launch after seeing it on Head for Points. Myself and my partner are fans of airline credit cards, but these credit cards often sting you with high Forex fees. So rather than travel with a special Forex credit card (we used to use Santander Zero), Curve meant that I could charge holiday costs to my normal airline credit card which meant more points for the next holiday flight!

Curve also allows you to withdraw a limited amount of cash from an ATM (UK or abroad) and have it charged to your credit card as a normal charge. This is great for several reasons:

  1. You can earn extra points by withdrawing cash and getting points for doing it
  2. You can withdraw foreign currency at a reasonable rate : £2 + (Mastercard rate + 1%)
  3. You can pay off the above cash in your next credit card statement with no extra interest unlike withdrawing cash directly from your credit card

I also like the instant notifications you get from the app, just like with Monzo. Something I would not get if I spent with the airline credit card directly. The notification also gives you an instant exchange to GBP when abroad so you know instantly how much that meal just cost you!

They have had a few outages but they have kept me informed (now via in-app notifications) and I can only recall once when it failed on a transaction (and I have used it hundreds of times).

So, even with the Monzo current account debit card, my Curve card and my airline Amex credit card will all still have a place in my wallet and the bulk of my day-to day spending will be done on the latter two, for now, to get me closer to that next flight upgrade :sunglasses:

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