MasterCard vs. VISA foreign exchange rate?

Jew

Which FX rate is better — the MasterCard or VISA one?

Would be cool to see a daily and historical comparison.

This is important for those considering which load-free credit card for use abroad.

MasterCard:
- Halifax Clarity
- Aqua
- Sainsbury's Gold

VISA:
- Nationwide Flex

Jew

Update: I found official tools from MasterCard and for VISA to check this stuff, but the comparison is manual, day-by-day — not a nice graph or anything.

For example, for EUR today:

MasterCard = 1.250348 (winner)
VISA = 1.241283

And for USD:

MasterCard = 1.620701 (winner)
VISA = 1.618301

But that could just be today, other people have suggested that the VISA rate was better when they were on holiday in France/Austria.

The big question is: if you have both a VISA and a MasterCard — how do you know which one to use on the day? Or in that moment?

Would be really cool to get an app for this. Some people on the other thread have suggested the difference could be 4% for holiday spending!

noh

Mastercard exchange rate:-
https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/index.html

Visa exchange rate:-
http://www.visaeurope.com/en/cardholders/exchange_rates.aspx

Jew

noh wrote: »

Mastercard exchange rate:-
https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/index.html

Visa exchange rate:-
http://www.visaeurope.com/en/cardholders/exchange_rates.aspx

Yeah I know, I linked to them above. Take a look at the big question, it may interest you.

Another question: Are those two sites up-to-date? And is there a quick way of checking them?

(By the way, how come VISA's site does the FX exchange backwards? Like, it gives the 0.XX rate instead of the 1.XX one. I convert by dividing 1 by either, but it's a stupid extra step.)

reclusive46

Its always different, some days Visa is better and some days MasterCard is better, hell sometimes American Express is better when they offer the no forex fee in the summer months (unusual as it its converted back into USD then GBP but it does happen).

Jew

reclusive46 wrote: »

Its always different, some days Visa is better and some days MasterCard is better, hell sometimes American Express is better when they offer the no forex fee in the summer months (unusual as it its converted back into USD then GBP but it does happen).

Interesting. How can we know which rate is better that day?

zagfles

MasterCard does seem to be consistently better, for Europe anyway, but there's not a lot in it. I had a play a while ago (when I was really bored) and worked out that VISA seem to have a spread of 0.2% whereas MasterCard have 0.02%.

Jew

zagfles wrote: »

MasterCard does seem to be consistently better, for Europe anyway, but there's not a lot in it. I had a play a while ago (when I was really bored) and worked out that VISA seem to have a spread of 0.2% whereas MasterCard have 0.02%.

Oh wow, that's pretty significant!

Do you have the data still?

Does anyone know an app developer? Simple app: query VISA and MC websites, return which is cheaper that day. Also log that, and output as a graph accessible online.

reclusive46

From personal experience, online it shows the general days rate but in reality MasterCards is normally slightly worse whereas Visa is more accurate.

zagfles

Jew wrote: »

Oh wow, that's pretty significant!

Do you have the data still?

Nope, all back of a fag packet.

But looking today (note it's confusing as VISA give rates the "wrong" way round ie they'll say how much 1 unit of the foreign currency costs, whereas MasterCard use the more usual method of how much foreign currency you get for one unit of your currency).

Todays rates are:
VISA rate, card in GBP, transaction in EUR 0.805618 (GBP per EUR)
VISA rate, card in EUR, transaction in GBP 1.247458 (EUR per GBP)

MC card in GBP, transaction in EUR 1.250348 (EUR per GBP)
MC card in EUR, transaction in GBP 0.799445 (GBP per EUR)

Work out the "charge" by multiplying the above figures and for MasterCard doing 1/x, then taking off 1 and dividing by 2 (to see how far off the mid rate).

MasterCard's "charge" is 0.02%, VISA is 0.2% which matches what I found before.

Did same for USD and the difference is even bigger, MC is under 0.01% and VISA is 0.27%.

Jew

zagfles wrote: »

Nope, all back of a fag packet.

But looking today (note it's confusing as VISA give rates the "wrong" way round ie they'll say how much 1 unit of the foreign currency costs, whereas MasterCard use the more usual method of how much foreign currency you get for one unit of your currency).

Todays rates are:
VISA rate, card in GBP, transaction in EUR 0.805618 (GBP per EUR)
VISA rate, card in EUR, transaction in GBP 1.247458 (EUR per GBP)

MC card in GBP, transaction in EUR 1.250348 (EUR per GBP)
MC card in EUR, transaction in GBP 0.799445 (GBP per EUR)

Work out the "charge" by multiplying the above figures and for MasterCard doing 1/x, then taking off 1 and dividing by 2 (to see how far off the mid rate).

MasterCard's "charge" is 0.02%, VISA is 0.2% which matches what I found before.

Did same for USD and the difference is even bigger, MC is under 0.01% and VISA is 0.27%.

Oh wow!

So, final answer MC is better?

Rats! Just got a Nationwide VISA :P