How to avoid High Currency Exchange Fees

If you like to travel often, or if your work takes you to different parts of the world, you’ll constantly change money. Every time you exchange currency, the banks charge you fees and mostly these fees remain hidden.

Round Trip Exchange

For example, you are moving from one country to another. You have sold your house in one country to buy one in the country you are moving to. Let’s say the house is worth 0,000 and you are transferring from London to New York, or from Sydney to San Francisco. Do you know how much you’re pay the bank when you wire the money?

You are in for a surprise.

The bank may charge you as much as 13% fees on a round-trip exchange. It means if you changed the money and then changed it back, you would lose 13%. Even if you are doing a one-way exchange, the average fees are around 3.5%.

Going back to our example, you just paid ,000 to the bank to transfer the money on your 0,000 house for you.

The “inter-bank” rate

Inter-bank rate refers to the rate the banks pay each other when exchanging money. These trades can be a few million dollars each.

This rate is the true exchange rate that you see on many financial reporting website, TV and newspapers. The banks make a margin over and above this for smaller retail transactions, resulting in the exchange rate with the fee included.

Usually the fee is not disclosed. What you see is usually the buy or sell rate that you get to exchange. You don’t see the fee because you only see how much foreign currency you’ll get when you exchange.

Avoid the exorbitant fees

There are several ways to avoid the high fees. But it depends on the currencies and the amount of money you are exchanging.

You can avoid huge exchange fees and pay only what is reasonable with leading currency exchange services, such as Texas Currency Exchange in Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Frisco and surrounding areas.

If you’re traveling overseas and need some cash, you have two options: local currency exchange (cash to cash) and your credit card.

The best option truly depends on the country you are traveling to. The local economy of some countries rely heavily on exchanging to U.S. dollars and you may find that the exchange rates for cash to cash can be quite reasonable (around 1% fees one way).

If you are looking for foreign currency exchange without any hassle in Dallas, San Antonio or Houston, Texas; call Texas Currency Exchangeat 888-975-6009. Our exchange specialists will help you with any questions about exchange rates, the type of currency you will need for your travels and more.

About This Author

Texas Currency Exchange Joined: May 31st, 2019