Malaysia - Should I withdraw from US dollars account or GBP account?

zipp

Hi everyone,

I am going to Malaysia for a while and can either access my US$ account based in the US while I'm out there or my GBP account based in the UK.

This may seem like a really naive question but I was wondering if it makes better sense to withdraw Malaysian Ringit from my US $ account from the ATM in Malaysia -
Basically I need some clever person to tell me if the conversion into Malaysian Ringit will be more favourable to the US dollar or the GBP.
I tried working it out myself and got brain freeze (dyslexic with numbers)

Any advice is most welcome and appreciated : )
Zipp

zagfles

Whichever account has the lowest charges.

dzug1

The exchange rates will be set by Visa or Mastercard and will be neutral - as zagfles says it will be your bank's charges that will make the difference.

whatyadoinsucka

dzug1 wrote: »

The exchange rates will be set by Visa or Mastercard and will be neutral - as zagfles says it will be your bank's charges that will make the difference.

not always so, currencies fluctuate differently to seperate currencies.
I went to argentina a few years ago, and had a short stopover in newyork on the way, i got £600 of us dollars (then $2:£1)
and got a far more favourable rate than uk sterling by as much as 10%, it depends what currency that particular country wants. south america always prefer us dollars

After all people trade currencies and make huge profits (or losses)
if your more interested read up on interest rate parity
******
xe currency
current mid price

£1 : 4.9431myr
1 US$ : 3.1250myr

£1=1.5845 US$

= 1 / (4.94/3.12)
= 1 / 0.63219437
= £1 = 1.581792 us dollars
thus us dollars gets a slightly better rate (but this is based on mid price)
you then have to factor in commission/bank fees

zagfles

whatyadoinsucka wrote: »

not always so, currencies fluctuate differently to seperate currencies.
I went to argentina a few years ago, and had a short stopover in newyork on the way, i got £600 of us dollars (then $2:£1)
and got a far more favourable rate than uk sterling by as much as 10%, it depends what currency that particular country wants. south america always prefer us dollars

But that's changing cash which isn't really relevant.

After all people trade currencies and make huge profits (or losses)
if your more interested read up on interest rate parity
******
xe currency
current mid price

£1 : 4.9431myr
1 US$ : 3.1250myr

£1=1.5845 US$

= 1 / (4.94/3.12)
= 1 / 0.63219437
= £1 = 1.581792 us dollars
thus us dollars gets a slightly better rate (but this is based on mid price)
you then have to factor in commission/bank fees

That's less than 0.2% difference - bank ATM charges can vary by 4% or more.