bluecorner.co.uk

Rafter

grumbler wrote:

I was always curious whether 2.65%-2.75% charge (your example with 4% is irregular) is levied buy CC companies only or Visa/Mastercard take part in this too. I think you could give me exhaustive and reliable information. Thank you in advance. Again I'd prefer to see real figures instead of words. And how could you check before buying?

Visa and Mastercard do charge your bank for converting overseas transactions back to £.

Not sure of the exact number, but think it is about 1%.

So nationwide lose money on every overseas transaction as they don't pass on this 'cost' to their customers.

As to whether 1% reflects Visa/Mastercards own costs, probably not, but there are some costs. Money just doesn't move between banks and currencies free of any cost at all and there is probably a bit of foreign exchange risk too if markets are particularly volatile on the day the transaction is made.

R.