GXS Bank review

Conversion on the GXS Bank card costs 0%. That compares with 0.1% at Wise, 0.5% to 3% at bunq and 0.5% at VaultLeap. The site median for currency conversion is 1%, so most card providers sit well above the GXS Bank figure.

It is a debit card, so spending draws on the money in your GXS Bank account rather than a prepaid balance you top up. Debit cards make up 73.4% of the cards in this ranking, so prepaid and virtual options are a smaller share of what gets compared.

It runs on mastercard, so it is accepted wherever that network is accepted. The listed network is the only scheme on offer here, which matters if a terminal or merchant abroad works with a different one. Across the brands compared, 38.9% run on that network.

Support runs through a help centre. There is no listed email, chat or phone line for the card, so anything outside the help centre is self-service. That suits people who are comfortable reading the answers themselves, and suits you less if you want to speak to someone when a payment is stuck.

The card is listed for travel, so it is aimed at people who pay in several currencies rather than at a single spending habit. It is a debit card, and the travel focus is the reason to look at it if you are away from home often.

It ranks 1 on currency conversion fee among the 237 brands compared, and the card takes an overall score of 8 out of ten here. A conversion fee of 0% is the fact behind that placing, since the site median is 1%.

GXS Bank converts at 0%, Wise at 0.1%, bunq at 0.5% to 3% and VaultLeap at 0.5%. On a single purchase the gap is small, but it repeats on every currency change, so frequent travellers feel it more than occasional ones.