Ever tried to pay for a round of drinks abroad with your multi-currency card and – oops – payment declined?

It's the worst. Especially when you've got plenty of money in the other wallets of your multi-currency account. 

Unlike many currency cards whose motto when you’re running empty is “computer says no”, Zing’s smarter multi-currency card has a little trick up its sleeve to help your payments go through – we call it ‘sweeping.’

What is FX sweeping, exactly?   

Sweeping is the way your Zing account automatically converts money from other wallets when you're running out of the currency you need for a card payment. 

No more awkward moments at the checkout – we've got your back.

Let's paint a picture. You're at Changi airport, craving a Singapore sling for your long layover. But your SGD wallet doesn’t have enough SGD to cover the payment.

With your average multi-currency card… you guessed it. Card declined. Cue the hassle of manually moving money between wallets or paying hefty fees with a non-SGD currency card.

But with Zing, it's a different story. Tap away and the drink is yours. 

Your wallet knows you're short on SGD, but instead of giving up, it smartly checks from other balances and converts the right amount. It’ll use up what’s left of your SGD, and for the amount outstanding, convert what it needs from your home currency (e.g. for UK Zing members, that’s GBP) to fulfil the payment. 

It all happens lightning-fast. You don’t need to do anything. Just relaaax.

But wait, there's more!

What if you’re out of your home wallet currency? 

No problem. Your Zing card will use your other open wallets, starting with the one with the highest balance, to convert money for your card payment. 

It’s possible to go through several wallets in turn to cover one card payment. 

And in the super rare case of a tie between the value of two wallets, we let the alphabet decide who goes first by currency code. So AUD before USD.

The downlow on conversion rates and fees

Zing saves you time and embarrassment at checkout – the convenience of automated conversions comes at no extra cost. It’s the same as if you manually converted money between wallets and then made your payment. 

For every wallet that contributes to your transaction, we use a real-time conversion rate at the time of transaction. There are slightly different rules on conversion fees when Zing supports a wallet for the transaction’s currency and when it doesn’t.

For transactions in currencies where Zing doesn’t support a wallet, we charge 1% for conversion (on top of the Visa exchange rate), no matter which wallet you use.

The good news is we only charge you once for conversions between your home currency and transaction currency at Visa’s rate. If other wallets step in to help stump up the cash, you won’t be charged for those sweeping conversions.

See all your sweeps

You can see the breakdown of your sweeps in the app. They display individually on the Homepage, but show together in Transaction Details.

And that’s pretty much it. What could be better than a multi-currency account that’s always looking out for you?