Curve replacing personal cards with business cards if used with COT

[Kowalski]

I received an email from Curve a couple of weeks ago. They’ve decided to cancel my ‘personal’ Curve Metal card, and replace it with a ‘commercial’ Curve Metal. One of the cards my Curve is linked to is a Capital on Tap card, which is of course a business card.

The email from Curve stated:

Looks like you have a personal Curve card and you’re making payments using a business card. This means you’re eligible for a replacement Curve business card.

We’ll soon be introducing limits and fees for using a commercial payment card on a personal Curve account.

But we’re here for our valued customers. We’re replacing your personal Curve card for free, with a commercial one, to get you ahead of the curve. With your new card, you’ll be exempt from related fees or limits, once they are introduced.

So they’re dressing it up as a good thing, I’ll be ‘exempt from related fees or limits once they are introduced’. But of course I’ll now be subject to fees when paying the likes of HMRC because I’ll be using a corporate card.

[danimal]

I’ve had a corporate Curve Black Card for years, it’s a debit card still and the HMRC surcharge is tiny – 0.1% I think. IF you are paying for Curve Metal that removes the Curve fees so you’ll be fine i think.

[kt74]

*sigh* The problem with Curve is that they keep moving the goalposts on literally everything they do. I use my Metal Curve with COT, Business Barclaycard, personal non-Avios Barclaycard, a couple of personal debit cards – that’s the whole point. Are they gonna give me a Corporate Metal to use with COT and BB, and Personal Metal with everything else? Why should I use a Corporate Metal with my personal cards?

If they force me to move to a Corporate Metal, it literally removes the value of the Metal card. Everything else I can get from COT or my other cards, so it’s gonna be goodbye Curve… How long do we give them before they run out of cash and ascend to the great big fintech graveyard in the sky?

[JDB]

@kt74 – you are essentially (and understandably) wanting the best of both worlds, using a personal card for business use as well as personal use; but that isn’t the point of Curve as you suggest. Curve is required to monitor and control/stop the misuse of its products so it seems somewhat unfair to criticise them for complying with regulations.

[Matt]

Curve’s problem is that anything they are useful for either becomes against the rules, or limited by themselves to the point that it ceases to be worthwhile.

I’ve not used my card (legacy black) for a long time, because I just don’t see where I would want to. Using it abroad runs into fees (UK weekend), taking cash out gets interest charged on credit card, it’s not all cards in one (Amex obviously, and now business cards). The original “use your credit card where it’s not accepted” is now limited by fronted fees, and limits even if you pay for metal.
Admittedly I am better off than some because I have the MBNA Horizon card, so get fee free spending abroad, but even without that I’d just get a fee free non-rewards card.

What is the (complying with the rules!) use case for Curve now?

[orudge]

This has prompted me to take a look at the app and I now see that my business cards (including CoT) are now showing an “Avoid the fees” message. Clicking that, it asks me to confirm my employment type, and when I select the appropriate option, it tells me I’m eligible for a free business card, or gives me “Other options”. The other options are Curve Metal (free for up to £1500 then 1.5% fee) or to stay on my current plan (Legacy Black), free up to £1000 then 1.5% fee.

I did originally have a business Curve card, but ended up mostly using it for personal payments after Amex support was dropped, and only switched to a personal Curve card when HMRC started charging for business debit cards (as I was using it to pay my self-assessment bills). My preferred HMRC payment method goes via Curve to a card that I see appears to be coded as ‘business’, so I guess I’ll get £1000 (a month?) free on that, then may have to settle for a lower Tesco earning rate for the balance, or see how much HMRC charges me to use the other card directly.

[orudge]

Matt wrote:

What is the (complying with the rules!) use case for Curve now?

I have made good use of ‘go back in time’ on occasions, and the various cashback offers that Legacy Black still get (though they’re not as good as they once were), which usually stack with Airtime Rewards and TopCashback etc. And at least one of my cards linked to Curve doesn’t (afaik) support Apple Pay, so Curve can be handy for that. That card also still treats cash withdrawals via Curve as a purchase, which is handy.

[kt74]

Well, ok, then I have no idea what the rules are – they keep changing them, and have been economically with explaining them in their rush to sign up users

Curve advertised itself as “all your cards in one”, “no more wallet” etc etc. I make business and personal transactions. Now I only carry one card and use one card in my mobile wallet. Go Back In Time means I can literally classify my coffees, tube journeys, and, yes, even HMRC payments, as being either business or personal, and allocate them to business and personal cards accordingly. For me, that’s worth paying for Metal; and I religiously stick to the £10k fronted limit, switching to debit card backed payments for the rest

Curve explicitly says in its current Ts & Cs that the Curve business card must not be used for personal purposes (but NOT the reverse – see https://www.curve.com/en-gb/legal/terms/ ) In fact, when they changed my original business card (as you originally could only sign up to Curve as a business in the early days), it was reissued as a personal card *by them*

So, was the premise of one card to replace all a *complete lie*? That was their entire advertising and communications campaign…

[rams]

orudge wrote:

This has prompted me to take a look at the app and I now see that my business cards (including CoT) are now showing an “Avoid the fees” message. Clicking that, it asks me to confirm my employment type, and when I select the appropriate option, it tells me I’m eligible for a free business card, or gives me “Other options”. The other options are Curve Metal (free for up to £1500 then 1.5% fee) or to stay on my current plan (Legacy Black), free up to £1000 then 1.5% fee.

I did originally have a business Curve card, but ended up mostly using it for personal payments after Amex support was dropped, and only switched to a personal Curve card when HMRC started charging for business debit cards (as I was using it to pay my self-assessment bills). My preferred HMRC payment method goes via Curve to a card that I see appears to be coded as ‘business’, so I guess I’ll get £1000 (a month?) free on that, then may have to settle for a lower Tesco earning rate for the balance, or see how much HMRC charges me to use the other card directly.

£1000 or £10000 per month? I thought curve metal gave £10000 per month fronted transactions for free

[Matt]

£10k/month “fronted”, I’m guessing the £1K/month is for business card use.

[JDB]

@kt74 I think that rather than Curve’s marketing being a “complete lie” you have simply misunderstood what they say and the obvious nature of the product as well as relying upon selected phrases to distort the facts rather than considering the whole. It’s a ‘one stop’ card either for business or personal, not both; there is simply no suggestion that it’s a pick n’ mix any more than Amex or Barclaycard offer mixed use cards; they too make you choose, but Curve also makes it clear you can only have one card.

[Jonathans]

To be fair, Curve do change the goalposts regularly in response to their customers usage and their own naivety. Unfortunately for the worst in most cases but you can’t expect them to remain a loss leading business indefinitely. They originally only ever issued a commercial debit card i believe, then switched personal debit cards for new customers and it remained optional for existing customers. Frankly its becoming a chore using Curve with the constant changes – 1.5% for fronted transactions and £15k daily limit, I might as well pay 1.8% for using CoT directly with HMRC and not have to make multiple daily payments.

The new T&C’s were released today – https://www.curve.com/en-gb/subscriptions/ see under Commercial Funding Card Fee. I’ve not been informed of the change yet but like most Curve emails they come through late afternoon\early evening after the event.

[Kowalski]

I wonder if they’ll allow people to have 2 Curve cards now? Seeing as they’ve cancelled my personal Curve Metal and replaced it with a business card, and it seems I shouldn’t use the business Curve for personal transactions. I now need a personal Curve in addition to the business one!

Like orudge above, I once had a Curve business card several years ago, I wrote to Curve and said I wanted to use the card to make HMRC VAT payments and that HMRC would charge me with the business card. Curve then sent me a personal Curve card instead!

[memesweeper]

Kowalski wrote:

I wonder if they’ll allow people to have 2 Curve cards now? Seeing as they’ve cancelled my personal Curve Metal and replaced it with a business card, and it seems I shouldn’t use the business Curve for personal transactions. I now need a personal Curve in addition to the business one!

Like orudge above, I once had a Curve business card several years ago, I wrote to Curve and said I wanted to use the card to make HMRC VAT payments and that HMRC would charge me with the business card. Curve then sent me a personal Curve card instead!

^^^ this — we customers need to be able to hold two cards. I assume you could get around this if you have a personal and work phones, and thus two phone numbers and curve accounts, but what a faff.

[No Longer Entitled]

Even with Metal you can now only fund £1,500 pcm from a corporate card before incurring a 1.5% fee so the £10,000 fronted pcm is now redundant.

For their T&Cs dated 11/4/23:

“Commercial Funding Card Fee – fee-free limit of £1,500 per calendar month then 1.5% of the total transaction amount.
This is for the service of Curve providing you with the ability to fund payments on a personal Curve card from a commercial card account. The Commercial Funding Card Fee is not refundable, including where you may raise a chargeback request.”

I can’t find any details about the commercial card offerings.

[Crafty]

No Longer Entitled wrote:

Even with Metal you can now only fund £1,500 pcm from a corporate card before incurring a 1.5% fee so the £10,000 fronted pcm is now redundant.

But not if one is funding from a non-corporate card, then?

Trying to understand what on earth is going on, as I seem to have been caught in a blanket email about changes to corporate cards, despite not owning any .

[Nate1309]

Like many of you I am “legacy black” and using my curve card to simplify my wallet (that was their whole ideology ffs) and use my HH barclaycard and COT card.

What are others doing?

I do occasionally pay HMRC on it and take the % hit and had been toying with the idea of metal for this year. But no point now I’m guessing.

I always use it abroad (HH barclaycard) to avoid the fees.

I like curve and have been using it from the very beginning but they are getting ridiculous for changing the rules. I can’t keep up.

[BuildBackBetter]

Jonathans wrote:

To be fair, Curve do change the goalposts regularly in response to their customers usage and their own naivety.

Is it curve that is really naive or some customers who think they can enjoy ‘benefits’ forever even though it’s a startup burning cash?
Am surprised it has stayed in business for so long on this unsustainable business model. Simply make use of the benefits before it shuts down.
Just can’t believe the sense of entitlement of some of these people.

[Harrier25]

BuildBackBetter wrote:

Just can’t believe the sense of entitlement of some of these people.

I agree. They want a personal card to avoid paying HMRC 0.1% and then throw the toys out the pram when they get stopped using a business card behind a personal card to avoid that same fee. Mind baffling.

[Jonathans]

Harrier25 wrote:

BuildBackBetter wrote:

Just can’t believe the sense of entitlement of some of these people.

I agree. They want a personal card to avoid paying HMRC 0.1% and then throw the toys out the pram when they get stopped using a business card behind a personal card to avoid that same fee. Mind baffling.

It has nothing to do with entitlement! I have more points than I could spend in 5 years. I can earn points by using the funding cards directly and pay the relevant fee which are about equal to what curve are charging all totted up. I had the £50 black card from day 1. I now have the £150 metal card. I pay the 1.5% fee with fronted. I am largely contributing to their coffers and have followed them since their inception 6-7 years ago.

My problem is the constant T&C revisions and all the features they push – its becoming difficult to keep up with what the card actually does. You still cannot have 2 Curve cards and the business card can only be used solely for business transactions. Therefore i would still have to keep a personal card and pay £150 for metal, 1.5% for fronted and 1.5% using a business funding card. The 0.1% HMRC fee is neither here nor there – its insignificant and chicken feed in the grand scheme of things.

Using CoT direct to HMRC with a 1.7% fee largely negates the point of Curve which is why i suspect they are doing this latest change. That means i no longer need fronted and arguably no longer need metal. Their USP of all cards in one no longer applies because I use apple pay 99% of the time so for me the question is purely do i even need curve anymore?! And unfortunately i don’t think i do.

[rams]

They need to allow 2 cards, not sure they will. May need to use player 2 now

[BuildBackBetter]

Jonathans wrote:

My problem is the constant T&C revisions and all the features they push – its becoming difficult to keep up with what the card actually does.

When it comes to the miles game, rule no 1 – if it’s too good of a deal, expect it to change or close quickly.
If you cannot adapt, you shouldn’t be playing this game.

[Rui N.]

Indeed. If an opportunity is good it won’t last. Enjoy it while you can, then move on to the next one.

[Skywalker]

Admittedly, Curve hasn’t done itself any favours with some changes (some self-inflicted, others imposed) but I do try to keep up and find I still like the product.

My card started out life as a commercial card and recently they emailed me to ask if I was putting any personal spend through it, so that they could change my card. So the queries about card usage and transaction type is two-way. I retained ‘commercial’, because that’s the use for my card.

Curve also has many offers to save to card in a similar way to Amex. Sometimes the brands that are on Curve require no minimum spend even if the same brands do on Amex.

For example, one useful offer I have just seen on Curve is for IHG hotels, spend, £50 or more, get 10% cashback (UK only).

[QwertyKnowsBest]

My head is now hurting after trying to follow Curves rules and fees.

Curve tell me that I have a business card, but I cannot confirm this as nothing shown on the card. I pay both business and personal expenditure through Curve and all cards loaded to Curve are personal. To the best of my knowledge I have never paid a fee using Curve to pay HMRC be it personal or business.

I cannot have 2 cards to separate business and personal so will continue until the game ends. But what are the advantages/disadvantages of Curve business V personal in my scenario?