Lunar is what I would call a “banking light” experience. You get a Visa debit card with no fancy features or tricks and an app to administer your account, including saving goals. This is my primary way of organising smaller savings.

How it works

With Lunar you get a standard debit card with a nice app to keep track of saving goals and spendings. You can setup recurring payments to other accounts or to your goals. You can pay bills normally (GIRO kort) or by taking a picture of your actual bill and Lunar will pay it for you. You can setup automatically payments using PBS and you can receive payments from the government.

In 2020 Lunar gained a banking license which means deposits of up to €100.000 are protected.

If you use their online support, be prepared for an informal communication style with kindness, emojis and GIFs. As a 38 year old I might be on the outer edge of their target group! But they are quick to resolve my issues.

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Features

  • Manage your money using goals which is a nice way to subdivide your Lunar account. Using automated rules in the app I set aside money automatically in goals every month.
  • No fees as long as you do not use top-up, travel card or overdraft subscription… 3 things I would not recommend using anyway.

Limitations

  • Overdraft is an expensive subscription - even if you do not use it.
  • You can receive international payments, but not send them. You can only send to Danish accounts. Use Revolut or some other way to send internationally for free.
  • The Travel Card is a waste of money since Revolut, N26, Transferwise or Curve offers much better deals.
  • The top-up function is not free, but you can get around this by transferring money for free using a standard SEPA bank transfer.
  • Not all ATM withdrawals are free. Withdraw using Curve plus an underlying DKK card for 10 fee free withdrawals per month to get around this.
  • No way to insert cash into your bank-account at an ATM.

How I am using the card

I use Lunar as my cash reserve and where I receive my paycheck and pay my bills. The the way I can setup goals is the main purpose of me using the account.

To get around the limitation of not being able to make international transfers I just use the Lunar card to do a top-up to my Revolut card, exchange the money and then transfer it for free to anywhere in the world!

If I need to withdraw cash from an ATM I simply do not use this card directly. Using Curve I can make 10 free withdrawals per month on any card - including Lunar - in any ATM.