FBC Bank review

The account carries a monthly fee of $5. No separate annual charge is listed, so the monthly fee is the recurring cost to budget for. Most cards on the site carry a monthly fee of €0, and fees elsewhere reach €99. There is no borrowing cost to weigh, because the card is a debit card.

FBC Bank issues a debit card, so it draws directly on the money in the account rather than extending credit. Purchases have to be covered by the balance at the time, and there is no interest rate to compare against cards that lend. The account sits with a bank founded in 1997 and based in Zimbabwe.

The card runs on mastercard, the network behind a large share of the cards in this market. Because it is a debit card on that network rather than a single market arrangement, it can be used wherever the network is accepted, though the account itself is set up for ZW.

Support runs on phone, email and chat. That means a cardholder can call, send email, use live chat or work through the help centre instead of relying on a single route. For a bank trading since 1997, that spread of channels is the practical part of the offer, since help is available without arranging a visit first.

It suits people in ZW who want a Mastercard debit card for everyday spending and are comfortable paying a monthly fee of $5. Someone putting the lowest possible cost first might prefer Wise, which charges a monthly fee of £0, while a cardholder wanting a secured credit card would look at a different product.

The monthly fee of $5 is well above the €0 most cards on the site charge, though fees elsewhere reach €99. Among the alternatives, Wise charges £0 and Chime Card charges $0, so FBC Bank is the one that costs most on this measure.

FBC Bank was founded in 1997 and is based in Zimbabwe, so it is an established local bank rather than a recent entrant. A long trading record tends to mean service built around staffed counters as well as digital channels, and the listed support routes are phone, email and chat, which fits that picture.

The card is priced on a monthly fee of $5 and works as a debit card, so the value sits in the card and the support behind it. Cards on the site that return cashback account for 49.5% of the market, which is a different design from this one.