Money, made clearer.

Sezvo Insights is where we slow down and explain things properly. Most financial content is written to sell you something; ours is written to help you understand the product you already have, the choices in front of you, and the trade-offs nobody mentions in the headline. We cover the everyday mechanics of money — accounts, cards, payments, FX — and the bigger questions of saving, investing, and looking after your assets, including crypto. We publish what we know, link out to primary sources for what we don't, and never write a sentence we wouldn't stand behind to a regulator.

A note on who we are, because it shapes everything below. Sezvo is the brand; the licensed entity is UAB Aušra Pay, an authorised electronic money institution (EMI) supervised by the Bank of Lithuania and passporting across the European Economic Area. Our BIC/SWIFT is OCENLT22 and accounts are issued with Lithuanian (LT) IBANs. We are an e-money institution, not a traditional bank — a distinction that matters for how your money is held, and one we explain in full further down. Where investing or crypto is involved, your capital is at risk; crypto assets in particular are unregulated and volatile. We say so plainly because pretending otherwise would be dishonest.

What we write about

Our writing falls into a handful of recurring themes. We don't chase trends or post for the sake of it — each piece exists because a reader, a support conversation, or a product launch made it useful.

• Everyday money. Budgeting that survives contact with real life, how to read a statement, what a direct debit actually does, and the small habits that compound over years rather than the dramatic ones that don't last a fortnight.
• Foreign exchange & multi-currency. Why the “0% commission” you see advertised is rarely the whole picture, how the interbank rate differs from the rate you're offered, and how to hold and spend across 28 currencies without getting quietly skimmed on every transaction.
• Saving. The difference between an interest rate and an AER, why compounding cadence matters, and how to use vaults and goals so the money you mean to keep actually stays kept.
• Investing basics. What a share and an ETF are, what “commission-free” does and does not mean, diversification, fractional investing from £1, and an honest account of risk — because the most important thing we can teach is that returns are never guaranteed.
• Crypto literacy. Self-custody explained without the evangelism, seed phrases and what they really control, the difference between an exchange wallet and an on-chain wallet, and how to avoid the scams that target newcomers.
• Security. Authentication, card controls, social engineering, and the simple truth that we will never ask you for your password, full card number, or recovery phrase.
• Product deep-dives. When we ship something — instant payments, a metal card, savings vaults, the crypto wallet — we explain how it works under the hood, including the limits and the edge cases.

How a multi-currency account actually works

A multi-currency current account lets you hold balances in more than one currency at the same time, inside a single account. With Sezvo you can hold and spend across 28 currencies. The mental model people often start with — “my money gets converted every time” — is the opposite of how it should work. The point of holding currency is that you don't convert until you choose to.

Here is the mechanic. When money arrives in, say, euros, it sits in your euro balance. If you then spend in euros, nothing is converted — you pay from the euro you already hold, at no FX cost. Conversion only happens when you spend or send in a currency you don't hold, or when you deliberately exchange one balance for another. At that moment the rate you receive is what matters. We show you the rate before you confirm, and we explain the difference between the mid-market (interbank) rate — the wholesale rate banks trade with each other — and any margin applied. Being upfront about that margin is the whole game; a hidden spread is just a fee wearing a disguise.

Why hold multiple currencies at all? Three common reasons:

• You earn or get paid in more than one currency. Keep each in its own balance and convert on your terms, not the payment processor's.
• You travel or spend abroad. Holding the local currency before you go means card payments come straight from that balance with no conversion at the till.
• You want to time conversions. Rates move. Holding lets you convert when a rate suits you rather than being forced into a conversion the instant you spend.

The practical upshot: your LT IBAN can receive in supported currencies, your card draws from the matching balance where one exists, and you stay in control of when value crosses a currency boundary. That control is the product.

What an EMI is, and how your money is protected

This is the most important explainer we publish, so we take it carefully. Sezvo operates through UAB Aušra Pay, an electronic money institution. An EMI is licensed to issue electronic money, hold customer funds, and provide payment services — but it is not a bank, and that difference changes how your money is held.

A traditional bank takes deposits and lends them out; your money funds the bank's lending, and you're protected by a deposit guarantee scheme. An EMI does not work that way. Instead, an EMI is required to safeguard customer funds — keep them separate from the institution's own money, typically held at a credit institution or invested in secure, liquid assets, and ring-fenced so they cannot be used to run the business or pay its creditors. The aim is that your money is yours, segregated, and available to be returned to you even if the institution itself fails.

Where it's relevant, eligible deposits can be protected up to €100,000 under the applicable deposit guarantee scheme. We are careful with this language: safeguarding and a deposit guarantee scheme are different mechanisms, and we will always tell you which one applies to a given balance or product rather than blurring them into a single reassuring word. If you take one thing from this piece, take this — ask any provider how your money is held, not just whether it's “protected.” A clear answer is a good sign.

• Safeguarding = your funds are segregated and ring-fenced from the EMI's own money.
• Deposit guarantee = a separate scheme that can protect eligible deposits up to €100,000 where it applies.
• Supervision = UAB Aušra Pay is authorised and supervised by the Bank of Lithuania, with EEA passporting.

How money moves: SEPA Instant, SWIFT, and internal transfers

“Why did my transfer take three days, and why does this one land in six seconds?” The answer is which rail it travelled on. There are three you'll meet at Sezvo.

Internal transfers move money between two Sezvo accounts. Because both sides are on our books, there's no external network involved — these are effectively instant, any time, any day.

SEPA Instant is the euro payment scheme that settles credit transfers across participating banks and institutions in the Single Euro Payments Area in seconds, 24/7/365 — including weekends and holidays. Where both the sending and receiving providers support it, a SEPA Instant payment typically clears in under ten seconds; most of ours land in around six. The two requirements are that the payment is in euros and that the recipient's provider is reachable on the Instant scheme. If it isn't, the payment falls back to standard SEPA, which settles on business days rather than instantly.

SWIFT is the international rail for payments outside SEPA — different currencies, distant countries, correspondent banks in the chain. SWIFT is slower (often one to a few business days) and can carry intermediary fees, because the money may hop through several banks before it arrives. It's the right tool for a payment to, say, the US or Asia, but it's not instant and it's rarely free. We tell you which rail a payment will use, and where fees may apply, before you send.

• Internal: instant, between Sezvo accounts.
• SEPA Instant: euro, EEA, ~6 seconds, around the clock.
• SWIFT: cross-border and multi-currency, slower, possible intermediary fees.

Cards, and why controls matter more than perks

A card is just an instruction to move money, but the controls around it are what keep you safe. Sezvo issues both virtual and physical metal cards, and both work with Apple Pay and Google Pay. The features that matter most aren't the finish on the metal — they're the ability to freeze a card the instant it goes missing, set limits on spending, and turn specific transaction types on or off. A virtual card you can freeze and regenerate is a far better defence against online fraud than a number printed on plastic in your wallet. We write about how to use these controls deliberately: freeze first and ask questions later, keep limits sensible, and use a virtual card for the merchants you trust least.

Savings: AER, daily interest, and goals

Our savings vaults pay up to 5.2% AER, with interest calculated and paid daily. Two terms deserve a plain-English definition, because they're where most confusion lives.

AER (Annual Equivalent Rate) is the rate that lets you compare savings products fairly, because it accounts for how often interest is compounded over a year. A headline “interest rate” and an AER can differ when interest is paid more frequently than annually. Because our interest is paid daily, each day's interest can itself start earning interest — that compounding is exactly what the AER captures. The “up to” matters too: rates can be tiered or variable, so we always show the rate that applies to your balance rather than only the best-case number.

Vaults and goals are a behavioural tool as much as a financial one. Money you separate into a named goal — a deposit, a trip, an emergency buffer — is money you're far less likely to spend by accident. The mechanics are simple; the discipline is the point. We write about how to size an emergency fund, how to automate contributions so saving happens without willpower, and why the boring, consistent approach beats the clever one almost every time.

The basics of commission-free investing — and risk

Sezvo offers commission-free investing across thousands of stocks and ETFs, with fractional investing from £1. Let's define the building blocks honestly.

• A share (stock) is a slice of ownership in a single company. Its value rises and falls with that company's fortunes and the market's mood.
• An ETF (exchange-traded fund) bundles many holdings — often an entire index — into one tradable instrument, giving you broad diversification in a single position.
• Fractional investing means you can buy a portion of a share. A stock priced at £300 isn't out of reach if you can buy £5 of it, which makes regular, small contributions realistic.
• Commission-free means we don't charge a commission to place the trade. It does not mean investing is free of all costs or, more importantly, free of risk. Other charges (such as FX on non-base-currency trades) and, above all, market risk still apply.

Now the part too many platforms whisper: investing puts your capital at risk. The value of investments can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you put in. Past performance tells you nothing reliable about the future. Diversification reduces — but never eliminates — risk. Time in the market and a long horizon help you ride out volatility, but nothing makes losses impossible. We will never imply otherwise, and any guide we publish on investing leads with that reality rather than burying it in a footnote.

Crypto self-custody, explained

Sezvo's crypto wallet is self-custodial and on-chain, spanning nine networks: Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, BNB Chain, Optimism, Base, Avalanche, Bitcoin, and TRON. “Self-custodial” is the single most important word, so here is what it means.

With a custodial wallet — typically an exchange — the provider holds the keys, and your balance is really an IOU on their books. With a self-custodial wallet, the keys are controlled through your recovery phrase (also called a seed phrase): a sequence of words that mathematically derives your private keys and therefore controls your assets directly on the blockchain. The freedom and the responsibility are the same thing. Nobody can freeze your wallet — and nobody, including us, can recover it for you if you lose the phrase. There is no “forgot password.”

The rules that follow from this are non-negotiable, and we repeat them often:

• Your recovery phrase is everything. Anyone who has it controls your funds. Store it offline, never type it into a website, and never share it — not with support, not with anyone.
• We will never ask for it. Any message that does is a scam, full stop.
• Transactions are final. Send to the wrong address or the wrong network and the funds are typically gone. Check both before you confirm.
• Crypto is unregulated and volatile. Prices can move violently; assets can go to zero. This is the highest-risk corner of anything we offer, and we treat it that way.

We also write about the practical texture of using crypto: why the same token can exist on multiple networks and why that matters when you send, what network fees (“gas”) are and why they fluctuate, and how to spot the impersonation scams that disproportionately target people new to the space.

Beyond the basics: business, loans, and insurance

Our coverage isn't only for personal accounts. We write for the self-employed and small businesses about business accounts, cash flow, and the FX realities of paying suppliers abroad. We explain how lending works — what an APR represents, how affordability is assessed, and why borrowing is a tool with a cost rather than free money. And we cover insurance the way we cover everything else: what's actually covered, what isn't, and how to read the bits people skip. Sezvo serves customers across 160+ countries, with 24/7 in-app support, so our writing tries to be useful regardless of where you bank from.

Our editorial principles

A hub is only as trustworthy as the rules behind it. These are ours, and we hold ourselves to them.

• Accuracy over excitement. We'd rather be useful than impressive. If a claim isn't precisely true, it doesn't ship.
• Risk is stated, not buried. When capital is at risk or an asset is unregulated, we say so up front — every time.
• No invented numbers. We don't fabricate user counts, awards, or testimonials. Real figures, attributed sources, or nothing.
• Plain language. Jargon gets defined the first time it appears. If a term needs a glossary, we give it one.
• We link what we don't own. For regulatory facts and primary data, we point you to the source rather than asking you to take our word for it.
• Education, not advice. Insights explains how things work; it is not personal financial advice. Your circumstances are yours, and big decisions deserve advice tailored to them.

That last point is worth underlining. Nothing in this hub is a personal recommendation. We're here to make the mechanics legible so you can make your own decisions with clear eyes — and, where it matters, seek regulated advice. If a piece ever feels like a sales pitch wearing an explainer's clothes, we've failed our own standard, and we'd want to hear about it.

A few evergreen reads to start with

If you're new here, these are the pieces we'd point you to first — the ones whose lessons don't expire:

• How multi-currency accounts work — holding versus converting, and how to stop paying invisible FX.
• What an EMI is and how your money is protected — safeguarding versus deposit guarantee, in plain terms.
• The basics of commission-free investing and risk — shares, ETFs, fractional investing, and the honest caveats.
• Crypto self-custody explained — recovery phrases, finality, and staying safe across nine networks.
• How SEPA Instant works — why a euro transfer can land in six seconds, and when it can't.

We add to this list as we publish, and we revisit older pieces when the facts change. If there's something you've always wanted explained without the spin, that's exactly the kind of thing we like to write next.