The latest must-have travel accessory is a prepaid card you can use to pay for things when outside the country without foreign currency conversion fees.
Prepaid cards can be a tiny step backward in convenience from debit and credit in that you may have to load money onto them online or using a mobile app. The benefit of this arrangement is a higher level of control over your money. According to the Canadian Prepaid Providers Organization, prepaid is the second fastest payment method after e-transfer. The total amount loaded on these cards is expected to grow this year by 20 per cent to just more than $10-billion. The average amount loaded is estimated at $176.
You’re also covered by the same zero-liability fraud protections offered by credit cards. Prepaid card issuers are either banks themselves or partnered with banks, which means deposit card balances and/or linkedIssuers of prepaid cards know they have to deliver more value than banks to attract customers and they’re trying to do just that. Spending on these cards can generate cashback of 0.