Can you use a virtual credit card to withdraw money from an ATM in the UK?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 24 Jul, 2023
- |
I just noticed today that a self-service checkout in a Swedish supermarket, where you can pay with either card or cash, now had the option to withdraw money from it.
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it and I guess these could be found in the UK, maybe now maybe later. I know Tesco have self service machines that handle cash.
So if you are like me, living without a wallet, then those are a good and speedy option.
If you can’t find any machines like these then your only options are to ask cashiers for a withdrawal, or to send money to someone you trust and ask them to withdraw it.
While the accepted answer is correct (I use a TransferWise card), the user specifically mentioned Revolut. Revolut provides a debit Mastercard (just like TransferWise) and I have used it across the EU (and in the UK…).
TransferWise may be available to users from more countries. My wife (Canadian, non-UK-resident) is not permitted a UK card, and uses my Revolut at UK ATMs, but she has a TransferWise account (I don’t know if she could get a TransferWise debit card).
My favourite is Curve, because it charges back to a credit card, and I switch between my UK MasterCard and my Canadian Visa, depending where I am; and I never have to load it up like Revolut or TransferWise. The downside is that I know you can’t get one of those if you are not a resident of the EEA.
Alternatively to an ATM, you can ask for cashback in stores.
The way this works is that after scanning your items, you can ask the person at the till for cashback of X amount (normally smaller amounts work better as they might not have enough in the tills/the app of your choice might have a cap), they then add that to the purchase amount, charge the contactless payment (in this case Google Pay as you mentioned), and give you the money from the till.
I’ve done this many times before with Google and Samsung Pay without an issue, no physical card needed. The easiest place to do this is at chain stores such as Tesco, Lidl, Morrisons etc as they are very used to it and the large ones are open 24 hours a day.
There are a few banks that allow you to withdraw from their own ATMs without a card (usually as an “emergency withdrawal service”, with a code you get via telephone banking), but other than that, as far as I am aware, you most definitely need a physical card to withdraw from an ATM.
You may want to check out Transferwise. They can provide a real Mastercard that you can use in store and in ATMs, which is backed by their “borderless” account with competitive fees in many situations (though ATM withdrawals are free only up to £200 per month).
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘