Thanks to technology, digital wallets blend together the power of mobile innovations and payment instruments such as accounts, debit cards, payments and more.
This way they overcome the clumsiness of traditional bank services and make them more intuitive, more convenient and fast.
And foremost, digital wallets cut 90.00% percent of the expenses that occur in traditional financial institutions such as luxury branches, tens of hundreds of front-office staff, as they deliver all payment services online.
At iCard, we are unstoppable at building a compact, yet rich and user-friendly digital wallet for happy users.
0.00 EUR/month for our Standard is not just an attention-grabber – it’s our way of thinking about modern payment accounts.
With an ever-expanding toolset, we might even be the most cost-effective personal financial app in the app stores, proven by hundreds of thousands of downloads throughout Europe.
Here are 6 ways you can save money with our freemium approach to standard money management features.
Safe online shopping with free virtual cards
Created for safe online shopping experience, iCard’s virtual cards can save you a lot of money and trouble because hackers can get their hands on your money in tons of ways, especially if you pay online with your bank card that holds all your money.
Sometimes you can get the best deal from new or unknown websites – just make sure to reduce your risk by paying with a virtual card.
Want to know more about virtual cards and why they are the most used payment tool in iCard, make sure to check this article.
We give every new user 2 virtual cards for free and you can get up to 20 in your digital wallet to use for online purchases at known and unknown websites and apps.
Substitute bank payment cards with iCard Visa Debit
To perfectly match the iCard no-monthly-fee account, we are also giving you a free Visa debit card.
It can become your reliable buddy that ensures you have access to the money in your digital wallet anytime, anywhere.
For an even better break-out from traditions, we will ship your first debit card for free – wherever you are in Europe.
Need it faster than regular mail delivery?
You can select iCard Visa to be delivered to you by courier, but this option is not free of cost.
Saving money is possible with our transparent ATM fees and free payments on POS.
Don’t forget, you can always order many debit cards and get creative with how to protect and spend your money.
Do ATM withdrawals with no hidden fees
Even our top competitor and their free account (careful with the 200 Euro withdrawal limit) can be times more expensive than iCard when it comes to taking your money out of an ATM.
We did a quick calculation with a simple debit card use case: You get your salary of 1,600 Euro in and you take the money out at an ATM to spend cash.
Here it gets interesting:
With a 300 Euro cash take-out limit, you need to do 6 cash withdrawals with iCard, each costing you 2 Euro. Total cost: 12 Euro.
With our top competitor’s debit card, you take out the first 200 Euro for free and then get slapped a hefty 2% commission on the rest.
That equals to 28 Euro, which is more than double of what you would pay with iCard Visa debit card.
The story repeats with classic banks in mind.
So, it’s up to you to check the hidden fees and it’s up to us to exceed your expectations by presenting the raw facts alongside the best personal money app.
Open a new online payment account in seconds, via your phone
Lots of banks either charge you a monthly fee or require that you keep some money deposited, in order to provide you with an IBAN account.
It gets even more expensive when you need a second account in a currency different from your home country’s money.
And it takes relatively long time to deal with account opening in person.
iCard’s approach is different – we give you a free electronic money account, accessible via a mobile app, that can include (for Free) up to 3 unique IBAN accounts for each of the 6 different currencies we now support – EUR, GBP, USD, CHF, BGN, RON.
The agility of the iCard digital wallet lets you be creative in how you split and keep your money safe in different accounts.
Our account holders are very creative in the way they use different accounts to designate money for different purposes.
Parents budget for children’s pocket money by moving the funds to a separate account with a separate debit card or NFC wearable connected to it and ready for contactless payments on school days.
Working people get their salaries paid into iCard and then use different accounts to store money for holidays or keep a separate shopping budget to control overspending.
Spend less (or nothing) on money transfers
Forget incoming bank transfer fees
Some people still get shocked when they receive less money than what they expected to get from a friend or relative abroad.
Whether it’s 10.00, 15.00 or 20.00 Euro, we believe this is a highly unacceptable bank charge – simply because bank infrastructure has long been paid for and there’s an insignificant human labour cost, involved in receiving the money.
When getting paid by bank transfer in a foreign currency, you can save money by not exchanging any incoming funds, but keeping it in its original currency for later use.
With iCard and the free Standard account, you never get charged for incoming transfers to any of your free IBAN accounts, whether it’s domestic or in a foreign currency.
Cheap outgoing bank transfers are possible
Some banks can charge even greater amounts of money for outgoing transfers. Have you ever been slapped 40 Euro for sending 600?
Supporting a student abroad can be a big burden on any family budget and we are here to make your life easier on your budget.
iCard has a flat 1.00 EUR fee for sending out a SEPA transfer in Euro.
If you want to send money internationally, whether it’s in a currency we support, or in a currency we don’t – don’t worry – your iCard digital wallet offers you highly competitive fees for international transfers that beats the majority of bank costs out there. All you need to do is to verify your identity, before you can send bank transfers.
Free and instant, real-time money transfers exist
Instant transfers were made possible some 20 years ago by PayPal, but they never really became free.
iCard connects friends and family, so any iCard user can send and receive money instantly and for free.
It doesn’t matter if you split bills with friends, after a nice dinner, or whether you send money to your daughter who studies in the USA, you get no-fee transfers that get there in the same second.
You can even get or send instant payments via iCard messenger, via your phone contacts on iCard or via QR codes if you don’t want to exchange numbers when you meet another iCard user face-to-face.
Save money by shopping with discount & loyalty cards
This is an amazing opportunity that lots of consumers pass by.
The reason is simple: We just can’t carry around 20-30-40 different cards from various retailers.
And we lose approximately 1% of our money in the form of discounts or loyalty points that can be converted to rewards or spending credits for the same retailers that run the loyalty program.
iCard unifies your payment experiences by letting you store digital copies of your barcode cards.
Keep in mind that loyalty cards with magnetic stripe cannot fit in iCard digital wallet, because they don’t have a barcode.
At checkout, you simply unlock your digital wallet with your passcode or fingerprint, scroll to find your stored discount card and present its barcode for scanning from your phone display.
With iCard, discount cards are available with a tap and, depending on your income and spending habits, can save you hundreds of Euro every year.
Bonus tip: With iCard, you do not only save money! You save time as well! Here is how:
- Download iCard from Google Play or App Store
- Open an account from home
- Get your card delivered
- Forget the bank branch visits
Old-school is cool, but don’t you want to move on?
Get iCard today!
