Can I use the Rooster Card abroad?

Tips on how to get the card ready to spend abroad

Updated over a week ago

Yes. Parent/Guardians will first need to make sure that the spending abroad option is turned on in the card settings;

  • From the Family Dashboard, select Card underneath your child’s profile

  • Select Card Settings

  • Toggle on/off Spending abroad (in-person)

With your Rooster Card subscription you can spend up to £50 in foreign currencies per month without any extra fees from us. Over that, we will charge you 3% of the transaction amount. Please note that some foreign ATMs may charge their own fees on top of this.

There's no need to contact us to let us know you're going abroad.

The card can be used anywhere that accepts visa payments via chip and PIN transactions and contactless transactions, so you will be able to pay using the Rooster Card if you are in another country that has these options.

You cannot use the card to make magstripe purchases where your card is swiped and then you sign. This is blocked because these are much more vulnerable to fraud.

Additionally, you cannot use your Rooster Card for payments via Chip and Signature. This method of payment is more common in areas such as: US, Mexico, parts of South America such as Argentina and Colombia and some countries in Asia including South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong.

When using your card abroad / buying things in a different currency from GBP

When paying for things not in GBP, when a card authorisation is performed, it uses the exchange rate at that point in time. However the settlement will be performed a number of days afterwards, by which time the exchange rate may have changed.

For example, if you buy an item for €12 euros and the exchange rate was £1 = €1.1 euro’s when the authorisation was made, you will see a charge of £10.91 on your account. If by the time the merchant collects the money the exchange rate has changed to £1 = €1.2 the merchant will still collect their €12, but this will now only cost your account £10! Rooster will then make an adjustment to return the £0.91 back to your account.

Note: with FX transactions the rate can fluctuate in either direction so the adjustment can also be negative. At the point of authorisation most companies (Rooster included) will authorise an amount slightly higher to protect against over spending. This hopefully means that most FX adjustments are returning funds to your account.


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