How we price FX and why we show the rate before you tap
Foreign exchange is where card companies quietly make their money, so here is exactly how ours works, with the numbers.
Foreign exchange is the part of a card product that most people never read about and most companies prefer to keep that way. A card that advertises "no foreign transaction fee" can still take 2 or 3 percent on every payment abroad by building it into the exchange rate. The fee is zero; the rate is bad. Both things are true and only one is in the ad.
We think this is the single most misleading practice in consumer payments, so this post lays out how Fundly handles it.
Two places FX happens
There are two moments where your money changes currency with Fundly, and they are priced differently.
When you deposit crypto. USDC comes in, EUR or USD goes into your balance. This is a conversion from a crypto asset to a currency.
When you pay in a foreign currency. Your balance is in EUR, you pay a bill in Thai baht. This is a conversion between two currencies, and it happens through the card network.
Both follow the same principle: the rate is a published reference rate with no spread added by us, and the fee is a separate line you can see.
Deposit conversion
For crypto deposits the reference rate comes from a published price source that aggregates major venues. We show it in the dashboard next to your deposit address, we update it continuously, and the rate applied is the one at the moment your deposit confirms. The transaction record stores that rate so you can check it later.
The fee is the deposit fee for your plan. At launch:
| Plan | Deposit fee | FX fee on card spend |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 1 percent, minimum 1 EUR | 1.5 percent |
| Plus, 7.99 EUR per month | 0.5 percent | 0.5 percent |
| Premium, 19.99 EUR per month | 0 percent | 0 percent |
Nothing else. If 1,000 USDC arrives and the reference rate is 0.92, your gross is 920 EUR, the fee on the Free plan is 9.20 EUR, and you are credited 910.80 EUR. Every one of those numbers is on screen before you send and in the record afterwards.
Card payments in another currency
When you pay in a currency other than your account currency, the card network converts it at its own wholesale rate. That rate is set by the network, published daily, and is very close to the interbank mid-market rate. It is the same rate a large bank's card would get.
On top of that, Fundly charges the FX fee for your plan: 1.5 percent on Free, 0.5 percent on Plus, 0 on Premium at launch. That fee is visible in the transaction detail as a separate line from the payment amount. We do not adjust the network rate and we do not add a margin to it.
So a 100 USD purchase with a EUR account on the Free plan looks like this in your history:
- Purchase: 100.00 USD
- Network rate: shown, say 0.9150
- Converted: 91.50 EUR
- FX fee, 1.5 percent: 1.37 EUR
- Total: 92.87 EUR
The equivalent with a card that advertises zero fees but builds 2.5 percent into the rate would show a single line: 93.79 EUR. Cleaner-looking, more expensive.
Why we show the rate before you tap
Card payments are authorised in a fraction of a second, so "before you tap" means the information has to already be in front of you. Two things make that work.
First, the dashboard shows today's network rate for the major currencies, and a converter that tells you what a given foreign amount will cost you in your account currency, including the fee. If you are about to pay a 4,000 baht hotel bill, you can see the EUR figure before you hand over the card.
Second, the notification for every payment includes the converted amount and the fee as separate numbers. If the figure surprises you, you know within seconds, not at month end.
A fee you can only discover by doing arithmetic on your statement is not a disclosed fee.
Dynamic currency conversion
There is one FX trap we cannot remove for you, only warn you about. When a foreign merchant or ATM offers to charge you in your home currency, that is called dynamic currency conversion, and the rate attached to it is set by the merchant's provider, not by the card network. It is typically 3 to 7 percent worse than the network rate.
If you accept it, the transaction reaches us already in EUR, so there is no FX fee from us, but you have paid far more than the fee would have cost. Always choose the local currency. We include this warning in the dashboard when you pay abroad for the first time, because it costs people more than any fee we charge.
Why not just make FX free for everyone?
Because it is not free for us. The card network charges issuers for cross-border transactions, and the deposit conversion has real costs in liquidity and settlement. A company that offers "free FX" to everyone either subsidises it from somewhere you cannot see, or is burying the cost in the rate.
Our approach is to price it plainly on the Free plan and remove it as you move up. Premium members pay 0 percent because the subscription covers it. That is a trade you can evaluate: if you spend more than about 1,300 EUR a month in foreign currencies, Premium pays for itself on FX alone.
What we will publish
Before launch the fee schedule page will list every fee, including the ones that almost never apply, such as recovery of a deposit sent on the wrong chain. It will name the reference rate source for deposits and the network rate for card FX. If any number changes, the page shows the date it changed and the previous value.
We would rather you compare us line by line with anyone and choose them if they are cheaper. What we will not do is win the comparison by leaving a line out.
If you want a card that shows you the rate before you tap, join the waitlist at /join.