Nationwide's free foreign withdrawals smoke and mirrors ?

apt

Yes, the Nationwide give you the Visa rate which is a very good deal. There are potentially two obstacles to this. One is Dynamic Currency Conversion. Here the ATM or terminal converts the sum into sterling taking a hefty commission in the process. Always insist in paying in the local currency. The second is that you get your money from an ATM that levies a service charge for all withdrawals. NW will pass this on. This is not a big problem in Europe, but can be harder to avoid in America.

eeja

gozomark wrote: »

was it this ?

http://www.corporate.visa.com/pd/consumer_services/consumer_ex_results.jsp?from=GBP&to=EUR&rate=0.0

Currencies fluctuate every day. The rate shown is effective for
transactions submitted to Visa on February 23, 2009.

1 British Pound = 1.13 Euro

</SPAN>

This is false and incorrect. If you think about it, it HAS to be incorrect or currency speculators would have a field day. In fact the rate is constantly changing during the trading day as it has to. The only time you can be sure of the rate you will get is after it has been fully debited to your account, usually the following day.
So to sum up you can never know in advance with N/W the rate which will be applied , unlike with Citibank ( some years ago anyway) which put the rate on the ATM screen and asked you whether you wished to accept it or not. Now if N/W would introduce such a system....... I can however confirm that the rate given is the best obtainable at the time the withdrawal is made.

Biggles

wombat42 wrote: »

This article suggests that many commision free foreign exchange deals are not good value at all as you get a poor exchange rate. The article does not explicity mention Nationwide but i wonder if the same applies to Nationwide and it is just smoke and mirrors.

You bet your life the article doesn't mention Nationwide. That's because it's written by one of their competitors, FairFX, who make their charges in other ways.

It's hardly going to mention by name the best deal around, is it?

;-)

RichardJW1

But Nationwide charge 27.9% APR for cash withdrawls

I took out just over £2.2k abroad, there was £54 cash advance fee (standard procedure and similar to what i used to pay for Barclaycard & Natwest Visa) and accrued interest of £12.15 despite having paid it off within 7 days.

Where is this 0% foreign currency fee saving - this is the charge for converting UK.p£ to U.S. Dollars?

VFR-Rider

You need to have the flexaccount, mine charges no advance or fees.

It's working out around 8% per transaction cheaper than my Abbey current account (I make around 3 a week as I work abroad).

gozomark

RichardJW1 wrote: »

But Nationwide charge 27.9% APR for cash withdrawls

I took out just over £2.2k abroad, there was £54 cash advance fee (standard procedure and similar to what i used to pay for Barclaycard & Natwest Visa) and accrued interest of £12.15 despite having paid it off within 7 days.

Where is this 0% foreign currency fee saving - this is the charge for converting UK.p£ to U.S. Dollars?

thats the cc you are using, not the debit card - both have a zero loading, but there is a cash advance fee on the cc. You have still saved the loading of 2-3%, but would save even more with a debit card.

Biggles

RichardJW1 wrote: »

Where is this 0% foreign currency fee saving - this is the charge for converting UK.p£ to U.S. Dollars?

That's right. As Gozomark says, you'd have paid all those charges with any other credit card plus 2.75% (or, more commonly now, 3%) foreign exchange commission, which is frequently not identified at all on your CC statement.

Inactive

RichardJW1 wrote: »

But Nationwide charge 27.9% APR for cash withdrawls

Yes they do on Credit Cards, but we are discussing Debit Cards, which have no commision.;)

RichardJW1

Ahhh thanks for the clarification. :j

I spend a lot of time abroad and have to withdraw cash in USD on Visa. Used to work between Barclaycard Visa & Natwest Visa up until the time they stopped working with them.

So having studied the advice on here and another website and pulled the Nationwide Visa card in January thinking I was going to save something (well at least save me having to claim back off the company). Part of the "15% cost reduction".

I never realised they offered a Visa Debit card, but I will inquire next time I'm back in U.K.


.....sorry for shang-hai-ing the thread

RjW

agsnu

Abbey Zero is the only credit card in the UK which will not charge any fees for cash advances abroad (although it will incur interest at 27.9%)