withdraw cash - repay in full

zemzem

Hi all,

I'm thinking of applying for Halifax Clarity because of no international fees. But it says that interest is charged for "cash from ATM" even if repaid in full.

My question - if I'm travelling and take out foreign currency from ATM but pay it back (whatever amount it was in (converted) pounds I took out) on the credit card (via online banking from my current account) immediately, on the same day - will I be charged for only 1-day interest?
Or do I have to wait for my monthly statement and only then repay, with xy-day interest?

Thanks!

YorkshireBoy

It'll take a day or two to appear on your recent transactions list (which is when you start to incur interest), so paying same day will eliminate the interest.

IIRC the T&Cs state they apply payments to statemented balances before unstatemented balances, so if you've not repaid your previous statement in full you may not be able to prevent interest being applied.

zemzem

Thanks YorkshireBoy! That sounds ok. One thing though - I guess I should wait until it appears on my (online, I guess, right?) statement rather than paying on the same day, because otherwise I might be in breach of T&C 7.7 (you mustn't pay in "advance" and be in credit) - see CommonQueries on Halifax Clarity page (section Can I put money on my card to increase my available credit whilst on holiday?)

YorkshireBoy

You mean 'recent transactions' list, rather than the actual 'statement' itself.

It's actually condition 16.9 (the FAQ is out of date!).

You could delay the payment, but the chances are (if you're doing back of fag packet calculations in resort) you'll end up creating a small positive balance anyway.

And don't forget, if you have the 12.9% representative rate the interest is approximately 3p per day per £100 withdrawn...so not the end of the world if you get it wrong!

zemzem

Thanks YorkshireBoy, that all sounds great. I guess I'll apply for Halifax Clarity then - great for travelling and buying abroad.

matty_544

Ive payed on the same day before. When i lived in Denmark temp, i withdrew quite a bit to pay my rent. I then went onto my online banking and calculated how much i roughly needed to pay through calculating the deductions on my available balance. Then sent an appropriate payment. Never made a positive balance nor was i charged interest. This was 2 yrs ago btw!