Top prepaid cards compared

About Top prepaid cards compared

A prepaid card sits between a bank account and travel money: you load money first, then spend it, so the two questions that decide your choice are what the card costs to keep and what it costs to change currency. This ranking covers 184 prepaid cards, and the trade-off runs through the whole list. A monthly fee of €0 is the norm, and an FX fee of 0.5% is typical, so cards that hold several currencies and load them cheaply stand out from those that charge for the same job. Safety of the money matters just as much, though the way to judge it differs. A custodial account means the provider holds your balance for you, and 93.8% of the cards in this ranking are set up that way. Travel use is the other common thread, since 66.4% of the cards here are aimed at spending abroad, and 44.8% hold more than one currency. Support is the everyday check: 69.7% of the cards offer phone help and 67.6% run a help centre.

How we picked

Every card here is scored on the three things that decide whether a prepaid account is worth keeping: trust in the provider, cost, and offer. Trust carries the most weight at 40%, because the safety of the money ranks above the fee schedule for most readers. Cost follows at 35% and covers the monthly fee, the FX fee and the ATM allowance. Offer accounts for 25%, drawn from the features, rewards, network and card type each brand lists. The 184 cards in this ranking were then placed in score order. Figures come from each provider's published fees page, with features, network, support and audience details drawn from its product and contact pages, and the wider market spread taken from comparison data covering 670 brands. Regulators, licence identifiers and protection schemes are named only where a brand's own records state them, and a card is judged only on what it publishes. Members with a partner relationship are listed first, followed by the rest in score order.

Our top picks

1. 2. Skrill: best for top-pick

   Skrill opens this ranking because it is the only card here that pairs a custodial account with crypto, a virtual card and multi-currency support, and it runs on a Mastercard network. The cost sits at the other end of the scale: its prepaid account carries a monthly fee of €5 and an FX fee of 3.99%, where the medians in this ranking are €0 and 0.5%. JMMB Moneyline and JMMB Money Transfer prepaid card, placed next, charges a monthly fee of JMD 0 and pays cashback of 10% but holds no crypto account. Skrill earns its place for multi-currency users and for anyone who wants a virtual card.

   • Monthly fee: €5
   • Currency conversion fee: 3.99%
   • Card type: Prepaid

   Pros

   • The provider holds the balance in a custodial arrangement, so there are no keys or self-custody steps to manage.
   • The feature list covers crypto, a virtual card and multiple currencies in one account, which a plain prepaid card would not do.
   • Irish supervision on two fronts, with a crypto registration MiCA CASP 213800QBQVHWRBHJTA89 and an e-money licence PSD_EMI IE_CBI!C184986 under the Central Bank of Ireland.
   • The prepaid card runs on mastercard, so it is accepted wherever that network is taken, at home and abroad.

   Cons

   • The monthly fee of €5 is high for a prepaid card, where JMMB Moneyline and JMMB Money Transfer charges JMD 0 and CrediMax Cardy EX charges BHD 0.
   • A conversion fee of 3.99% sits on every foreign currency purchase, while Beyon Money converts at 0%.
   • It places 383 of 419 brands on the monthly fee and 250 of 259 on conversion, near the back of both fields.
   • The balance is custodial, so the provider holds the money and it is not in an account the customer controls.

2. 7. JMMB Moneyline and JMMB Money Transfer prepaid card

   JMMB Moneyline and JMMB Money Transfer prepaid card sits second in this ranking on cost and rewards rather than on extra features. Its prepaid Visa account carries a monthly fee of JMD 0 and an ATM free allowance of JMD 0, and it pays cashback of 10% on spending, the reward that lifts it clear of the cards ranked below. Multi-currency and travel features cover the usual overseas case, and the company has traded since 1992. CrediMax Cardy EX prepaid Visa, third in this ranking, charges a monthly fee of BHD 0 as well and matches the travel feature, but opens 33 currencies.

   • Monthly fee: JMD 0
   • Free ATM withdrawals: JMD 0
   • Card type: Prepaid

   Pros

   • No monthly charge: fees run JMD 0 on the prepaid account
   • Cashback of 10% adds a rebate on everyday card spend
   • Prepaid rather than credit, so prepaid balances do not need a credit check
   • Runs on the visa network, the choice on 58.6% cards in the wider set

   Cons

   • Free ATM withdrawals sit at JMD 0, so cash machine use is the main everyday cost
   • Skrill charges a monthly fee of €5 against JMD 0 here, which makes this the cheaper of the two to hold
   • A prepaid card holds the balance with the issuer, so it does not earn interest while money sits on it

What to look for

A monthly cost that stays at nothing

A prepaid card with no monthly fee simply costs less to sit unused. The monthly fee in this ranking has a median of €0 and reaches €31.38 at the top of the range, so check what your card asks for every month even if you use it only for holidays.

What converting currency costs

Changing currency is where prepaid cards earn their keep, so the FX fee matters more than the monthly cost. The FX fee here has a median of 0.5%, a low of 0% and a high of 7%, and a card that converts free can be worth more than one that is free to hold.

Cash withdrawals abroad

ATMs help in some countries and cost dearly in others. The free ATM allowance in this ranking has a median of €0 and tops out at €438.48, so a card with no free withdrawals will drain a balance quickly abroad.

Who holds the money

A custodial account means the provider holds the balance rather than you, which is how 93.8% of the cards in this ranking work. Read each provider's own terms to see what protection applies to loaded funds, since the scheme and the limits differ between brands.

Travel and multi-currency features

Cards built for travel and for holding several currencies at once are the norm here: 66.4% of the cards in this ranking list travel and 44.8% are multi-currency, so check which currencies you actually need before paying for the feature.

Network and everyday support

Network and support decide how widely a card works and how quickly you get help. Visa is the most common network in this ranking at 51.4%, phone support runs to 69.7% of the cards, and cashback is the most common reward at 64%.

Frequently asked questions

Top prepaid cards compared by country

• Australia
• Brazil
• Canada
• China
• France
• Germany
• India
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• Netherlands
• Singapore
• South Africa
• United Kingdom
• United States

Cards compared head to head

• Coinbase vs CoinJar

The data behind this ranking

All data and the CSV