Banco General review

The card carries a monthly fee of $2.68 and a currency conversion fee of 3.21%. Those two figures are the whole cost picture, and the monthly charge is the part that separates it from Monzo Flex, Wise and Bitpanda at £0, £0 and €0.

It is a debit card, and the network listed for it is visa. The card also carries the multi-currency feature, so balances held in more than one currency can be spent from the same piece of plastic.

Support runs on chat and phone, and those are the channels named for this card. Phone suits an urgent question about a payment that just went through, while chat suits routine queries about the account and the card.

It is a bank. The legal entity behind the account is Banco General, S.A., the headquarters country is PA, and it has operated since 1955. The card, its fees and its support channels all come from the bank rather than from a separate platform.

The currency conversion fee is 3.21%, and that is the figure to weigh before spending outside Panama. The median conversion fee across the crypto card ranking is 1%, which puts Banco General on the dearer side of the field.

It ranks 327 on monthly fee among 379 brands tracked on the site. The median monthly fee across the crypto card ranking is €0, so paying for the plan is a real difference from most of the field.

It suits people in Panama who pay for most things from a bank balance and hold more than one currency, given the multi-currency feature. It does not suit spenders who want the plan at £0 or £0, since the monthly fee here is $2.68.

The overall score is 1.1, with the cost axis at 1.1. That low cost mark follows from the monthly fee of $2.68 and the conversion fee of 3.21%, both of which are above the free plans on offer elsewhere.