Can I offer something realistic? If Curve would offer everything what Nationwide FlexPlus offers for £13 pm on top of current free tier offer, I would consider switching from Nationwide FlexPlus. But offering “semi-baked” unnecessary things for the 3-rd of the price doesn’t suit to me personally.
P.S. I am sure later Curve will introduce limits on how often one can swap cards in free tier too just to make it difficult to push those to paid tier.
@Curve_Joel So you got the overwhelming feedbacks that 2 cards limit is ridiculous. I wonder if this will be acted upon (probably not). Watching closely as a crowd funder and a customer.
That’s the issue. It’s not a feature.
It’s the entire concept and business. It is Curve.
Curve is not a public utility. Don’t use if it doesn’t meet your needs for any reason.
Saying don’t use it is all well and good, although not very helpful – just ask Halifax. After all, this particular forum-topic was set up to ask for feedback – good or bad.
You have to accept that changes made that appear to reduce the usability and/or appeal of a product is always going to generate negative feedback. If said feedback is then overwhelmingly negative, to the degree that it becomes “white-noise” that would suggest that Curve made an error of judgement.
Now, whether they accept this and change things, or just ride out the negative feedback is (of course) entirely up to Curve.
A small concern like Curve is probably better able to ride out negative feedback, whereas a large company could generate headline news.
From a personal point of view the Metal offering is just tipped in my favour to keep, the other offerings would now not be. This means that should the Metal tier no longer be worth while a customer will be lost – and as everyone knows it is harder to get a customer than keep one.
Also somebody asked this:
Further reflections…
Some people happen to have two cards. Others like me happen to have ten or more. There’s no reason for Curve to discriminate between it’s customers and vary what they charge based on the number of cards they have. Adding cards onto the app is the one feature that has universal appeal. I’m more convinced than ever this feature should stay free. I accept everything else as negotiable.
From that premise, there is plenty of scope for Curve to make changes that would hold onto the bulk of their customers, increase revenue and avoid a much of the disappointment expressed.
I’ve been imagining if the announcement had said the following.
Curve Blue will continue free, all cards in one. It has no GBIT, no smart rules, no anti-embarrassment, no free FX spend or foreign cash withdrawal (the card provider’s FX rates can be obtained by changing currency). A virtual card will be created who’s details can be used online and added to Google Pay or Apple Pay. The physical card is optional. Each costs £4.99. You can order as many as you wish linked to the same account.
Curve Y will be £1.99 per month (possibly discounted for the first 12 months). It includes 30 day GBIT, 2 smart rules, anti-embarrassment, £500 allowance of FX spend , £100 allowance for foreign cash withdrawal and one physical card.
Curve X will be £4.99 per month (possibly discounted for the first 12 months). As advertised, it will include 60 day GBIT, 5 smart rules, anti-embarrassment, £1000 allowance of FX spend, £200 allowance for foreign cash withdrawal and one physical card.
Now that’s just an example. I’m guessing this goes further than necessary for Curve to make up it’s revenue, but it would still be an improvement over what’s been announced.
Speaking personally, so long as ‘all cards in one’ exists on every tier, my continued use of Curve is guaranteed. I’d be inclined to upgrade to £1.99 per month to retain some features. I’d consider paying £4.99 for more of them. If Curve chose to add features to the Black and Metal tiers, I’d consider these as well.
But on the current proposals, suddenly paying a minimum of £9.99 per month just to be able to keep my cards on the app is out of the question.
Allow ppl to combine their own more or less perfect plan which suits them best.
Give 10 “building points” for blue, 20 for X, etc.
If users wants more cards in free tier, fine, but that costs you “Y” amount of “building points” , wanna something else, get less cards, add something else for max of 10 points.
Well, for me curve makes sense where you can not use the other general systems like Google. Fitbit or Huawei are good examples.
That would be a bit of a pain to set up but would be extremely innovative.
Something similar has been suggested in the topic below
But in this topic is suggested that users can pick different benefits and not different features, probably because at that time the fact you can/could add as many cards as you like was seen as a given/feature and not as a benefit that comes with the higher subscription tiers.
What’s Hungarian for trolling? That’s what you’ve been doing on this thread and it doesn’t look good since you’re representing Curve as a moderator.
As I posted above I’ve reduced my Curve usage to almost nothing but I’ll keep it for now.
Curve should make changes to stay in business and I’ve always wondered how they make money but if they can’t make money when I use their facility for £15,000 over a year maybe it’s just a bad business?
Either way I think the idea behind Curve is good (that’s why I signed up) but if it is truly good they should allow everyone who has the present free card to continue as normal because if it’s that good then the new card holders will be happy to pay.
They’ve obviously put a lot of thought into their action and someone somewhere has been forced to damage their most important selling point: All Your Cards in One and Your Wallet in One Card.
Yes, but was ‘free’ but now £10 per month for my 9 cards.
I think Curve need to look of others ways to make money (become a proper bank in the UK?) and not the band wagon of the pyramid scheme and scam of crypto as that truly will blow up in their face.
I am a user of Swatchpay so took the plunge reluctantly to sign up to Curve X as I did not want to be limited to 2 cards on my account but can’t get Swatchpay! to work with the Curve X card so not impressed so far.
Get where you’re coming from and agree when it comes to the value being offered - this suggestion would also require support for joint accounts and full household coverage in order to be a viable alternative to the Nationwide offering, I doubt this is something Curve could realistically go toe-to-toe with them on.
The email states - Changes to the free Curve card will come into effect 60 days from the date this email was sent. If the new limit is applied in sixty days then why could you not add as many underlying cards as you wanted to and the underlying cards will remain on the Curve card until it expires when the limit would be applied? Curve would not be able to move you to a subscription unless you agree to the new level and cannot randomly delete cards from your account. As far as I can see it would be in breach of their own current terms and conditions. This would allow current free users who have undecided if they want to move from the free tier as much time as the expiry date of their underlying card allows.
The benefits and rewards as has been stated don’t justify the cost even for the first year discount IMHO. The USP is not unique anymore apart from GBIT and there are cheaper or free products on the market.
I am also disappointed that as Crowdfunding Investor there has been no investor offers to acknowledge this change as there has already been a financial commitment to the company – Stickers and socks do not cut it.
Absolutely. It is all about value creation. Those who can not do it will have to lose in this high competitive world.
I am starting to look for Curve alternatives, so far found only Vitracash.
2 cards only = Disaster for curve. Hope they dont make the changes. If they do, I can just stop using it and look to sell my shares
I’m thinking on the same, but how can I sell my shares?
Hey @andyk, we’ve sent emails to all of our users (excluding those that have requested to be removed from our mailing list) and have posted across all of our socials to make sure everyone is aware of this change. I’m sorry if the email didn’t reach you and this is why we’ve made sure to make news around this change as accessible as possible so no one feels blindsided on August 27th when the changes to the free subscription are implemented.