CMF review

The monthly fee is $0, so holding the card costs nothing. Paying or topping up at partner merchants carries no charge either. Each top up does include a small fraud insurance premium, so frequent loading adds a sliver of cost that the free monthly fee does not cover.

The currency conversion fee runs 0% to 3%, and the median across the site is 1%. Read that range as the real cost of the card: holding it is free, but spending in another currency is where the account gets expensive.

The card type is prepaid and the format is a virtual card. That suits online and app spending rather than a printed card in your wallet, so it is worth checking what you need from plastic before you apply.

Support runs on email, chat and phone. A help centre is the most common channel across the site at 79.6% and phone support follows at 74.4%, so a language or time zone gap is worth weighing for a Panamanian issuer.

The provider behind the card is CMF Financiera, S.A., based in Panama. A Panamanian issuer means the account and its support sit outside the UK and Europe, which matters if you prefer a provider close to home.

The card runs on mastercard. Visa is the more common network on this site at 58.5% against 37.6%, so abroad it trails Visa in popularity here, though both networks work widely.

The cost score is 6.3 and the overall score is 6.3. On monthly fee it ranks 1 of 422 brands, so price is the strongest part of the profile and the other fees decide the rest.

Most readers here move to a different product, with a retail loss rate of 70.15%, so treat CMF as one of 2,247 options rather than a given. Skrill, JMMB Moneyline and JMMB Money Transfer prepaid card and CrediMax Cardy EX prepaid Visa are the closest prepaid comparisons.