Tips for payments abroad
In this short note, I want to recap some ruses to save some fees during travels in countries where the currency is not Euro.
Different exchange rate
If we read carefully on a bank contract in the section reserved to the payment card we can find the lettering "Mastercard exchange rate" or "Visa exchange rate" depending on your card circuit. Some card like curve in the contract wrote "Interbank exchange rate". So why different exchange rates? I always thought that it was unique and defined by the stock market. Well, I discovered that Visa and Mastercard instead of using the stock market's exchange rate, offers and imposes their exchange rate that is usually less convenient than the official one. Otherwise, Curve refers directly to the interbank exchange rate and this is 0,3%-0,5% fewer fees.
Bank fees
Usually, banks demand also some fees on foreign values, so we have to pay about 0,3%-0,5% to the card issuer and a percentage that can change from zero to 3%-5%. Additionally, if we withdrawal money banks ask for a fixed fee, a percentage on the cash, or both.
Curve card
For my travel to Poland, I decide to use a card issued by Curve that offers totally free withdrawal up to 200 Pounds that means obtaining the interbank exchange rate and spending 500 Pounds without any fee. Using this card is very simple because we don't need to open a bank account but just giving them the credit card number and the currency of the card.
Expensive ATMs
In most touristic cities like Krakow, there are thousands of Euronet ATMs but I suggest to stay away from them because they try to steal your money in three different ways:
- They offer to withdrawal a huge amount of money that is absolutely not needed if you are not a sheik.
- They try to exchange your money instead of your bank with an outrageous exchange rate, you can easily pay more than 10-15% to exchange the currency.
- They ask for a fixed withdrawal fee that is about 4 euros in Poland.
Summarising
The cheapest solution is to pay and withdraw with the Curve card until you reach the limit, and then use only the bank's ATM paying with the bank card and refusing currency exchange from POS. Another solution for frequent travelers can be open Revolut, Monese, TransferWise obtaining each time 200Euros of free withdrawal.