PayPal Conversion Rates

Joka999

I'm making a payment for goods via PayPal of roughly $309 (from GBP to USD), PayPal offer this conversion rate;

Conversion rate: 1 GBP = 1.5877 USD

There's an option to "Convert with card issuer", I've read using this option saves money provided you know your banks exchange rates etc. My problem being I don't nor do I know how to find them, my bank is TSB. Is anyone able to provide any advice?

Sorry if this is the wrong section.

grumbler

A recent thread: Paypal payment in foreign currency

For your card see MSE article:

• Your Card's Overseas Charges
• full overseas cards charges

Lloyds debit card is one of the worst around for foreign transactions

For Visa and Mastercard rates see
http://www.visaeurope.com/en/cardholders/exchange_rates.aspx
https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/

(Mastercard webpage doesn't work for me, bat the difference with Visa is negligibly small; both are very close to the interbank rate)

Joka999

So I'm using a Visa debit card, meaning the load is 2.99% + £1 from TSB. Using those rates in that calculator I got the following;

1.00 UNITED STATES DOLLAR = 0.63 BRITISH POUND
1 BRITISH POUND = 1.5772397988 UNITED STATES DOLLAR

So in comparison this means PayPal is cheaper?

Thanks again.

grumbler

Joka999 wrote: »

So I'm using a Visa debit card, meaning the load is 2.99% + £1 from TSB. Using those rates in that calculator I got the following;

1.00 UNITED STATES DOLLAR = 0.63 BRITISH POUND
1 BRITISH POUND = 1.5772397988 UNITED STATES DOLLAR

Correct - ignoring extra £1 that will make it even worse:
£1/$300=~£1/£180=~0.55%.
2.99%+0.55%=3.54%

So in comparison this means PayPal is cheaper?

Maybe - after taking £1 into account.
I don't know where you've got Paypal's rate from, but on their website they unintelligibly say:

Currency conversion fee

U.K. Pounds Sterling (GBP) 3.5%
U.S. Dollar (USD) 3.0%

https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/cross-border-and-conversion-fees#currencyconversion
As they convert £ to $ I would pessimistically expect 3.5%.

Anyway, the difference is very small as both Lloyds and Paypall are almost equally bad for currency conversion.

Joka999

So it's probably just easier to go through PayPal then?

I got PayPal's conversion while going through the steps to make the payment. Now I'm getting the following conversion rate from PayPal:

Conversion rate: 1 GBP = 1.5954 USD