£2.5 billion of foreign currency goes wasted

Research shows that £2.5 billion worth of foreign currency remains unspent at the end of a holiday, £819 million of that ending up idly sitting in the kitchen drawer

A recent report has identified an unused treasure trove of over £800 million worth of foreign currency sitting in the nation’s kitchen drawers and piggy banks. This cash is leftover from holidays abroad and can remain unspent, devaluing for years.

The research conducted by WeSwap, identified a total of £2.5 billion brought back unspent from holidays – averaging about £90 an individual. Of this around £725 million is typically spent at the airport on duty free stalwarts such as giant Toblerones, discount spirits and location fridge magnets. The remaining unspent cash will often end up in the sock drawer or coin jar at home.

The research estimates 60% of travellers, 27.1 million people, overbudget when they take cash on trips abroad. Additionally, 29 million people, or 65% of those polled say they have foreign currency at home waiting for their next trip.

With so much money sitting around unused individuals can lose out in multiple ways. Having paid above the currency value via arbitrary spreads and exchange fees, they are then unable to spend that money at home if they’ve been prudent and saved some on holiday. As well as this, cash can often deteriorate in value due to inflation, whether its pounds, dollars or euros. As most travellers will always budget for an emergency it’s unfortunate than an emergency-free holiday can mean money wasted when they get home.

FX everywhere but not that you can spend!

Saving by spending gold

By giving people the opportunity to spend gold as money worldwide Glint negates the problems and costs of having to change money to go abroad. “Gold is understood everywhere as money,” said Glint founder and CEO Jason Cozens. “Glint allows you to spend gold anywhere Mastercard is accepted. Our technology means your gold is sold into the local currency, a transaction that takes less than 200 milliseconds.”

Charging just 0.5% when clients buy gold via an app there are no charges to spend with Glint, wherever you are. “We’re completely transparent about out fees, which we want to keep minimal. Our interests and our clients’ are aligned,” says Cozens.

“If you’re using Glint you aren’t going to run the risk of having unspendable cash sitting around after a trip. You can budget on the app, and by spending in gold you’ll often beat the fluctuations inherent in the currency market. You’ll only be charged 0.5% and you’ll always get the market rate for gold and paper currency. If you do need cash you can withdraw from an ATM abroad or at home.”

Glint also gives its users the ability to choose from a number of currency wallets on the app, meaning if you don’t want to spend your gold you can select from your dollars, euros or pounds – you are only charged when you move money between currencies and then just 0.5%. However, when it comes to avoiding the inflation inherent in the global economy, gold always wins out says Cozens: “We made gold the global currency because it keeps its value. Our app allows you to mitigate the barriers of FX with gold, the safest store of value. We believe there is no easier or cheaper way to spend your money abroad or at home.” [Full disclosure]