Anyone tried Starling Bank?

d123

krytenspal wrote: »

Thanks for the quick replies - I`m new to this so....what would be a ballpark figure (assume it`s a percentage of the amount?) added on to any purchases I made,say,in Spain do you think - and this is added everytime I buy something with the card? Is there much saving over using a normal debit card abroad?

As the above posters have already said, there is NO add-on charge, you spend in €’s in Spain and Starling bill you in £’s at the standard Mastercard foreign exchange rate for the day.

As of today, as an example, if you spent €1 you would be billed 89p for the transaction in Sterling.

https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/consumers/get-support/convert-currency.html

colsten

krytenspal wrote: »

Is there much saving over using a normal debit card abroad?

Yes, there most likely is, as other banks do not necessarily use the best exchange rate, and more often than not charge an extra fee for using your card abroad.

londoninvestor

d123 wrote: »

As the above posters have already said, there is NO add-on charge, you spend in €’s in Spain and Starling bill you in £’s at the standard Mastercard foreign exchange rate for the day.

As of today, as an example, if you spent €1 you would be billed 89p for the transaction in Sterling.

https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/consumers/get-support/convert-currency.html

There sort of is an add-on charge, if you look at the Mastercard rates. For example for 21/6/2019:
Spending €100 costs £89.45

But if you had a euro-based card and you spent £89.45 in the UK, that would cost you €100.69.

So Mastercard isn't just passing on the mid-market rate, it's taking a cut here - €0.69 in that pair of transactions, so about 0.35%.

This of course is still better than most high-street cards, which will charge you the Mastercard or Visa rate plus 2.5 - 3% on top of that!

d123

londoninvestor wrote: »

There sort of is an add-on charge, if you look at the Mastercard rates. For example for 21/6/2019:
Spending €100 costs £89.45

But if you had a euro-based card and you spent £89.45 in the UK, that would cost you €100.69.

So Mastercard isn't just passing on the mid-market rate, it's taking a cut here - €0.69 in that pair of transactions, so about 0.35%.

This of course is still better than most high-street cards, which will charge you the Mastercard or Visa rate plus 2.5 - 3% on top of that!

I would hazard a guess there are a number of Forex rates available for the currency, and Starling use the rate offered by MasterCard?

Starling apply that Mastercard rate with no add-on.

londoninvestor

d123 wrote: »

I would hazard a guess there are a number of Forex rates available for the currency, and Starling use the rate offered by MasterCard?

Starling apply that Mastercard rate with no add-on.

The key thing is that Mastercard doesn't just publish the rate as a matter of information (like Bloomberg, Reuters et al do) - Mastercard is doing the FX conversion.

So if you purchase a €100 item on 21st June with the Starling card, Mastercard will credit the retailer with €100, and debit Starling with £89.45 - which Starling obviously applies to your account.

Mastercard would have been able to acquire those €100 in the interbank market for a bit less than £89.45, so they make a small profit.

I don't think this is a particularly unreasonable margin, just worth being aware it's there.

By contrast, if I buy a €100 item with a Revolut or Transferwise debit card, Mastercard won't do any conversion - they'll credit the merchant with €100, debit Revolut or Transferwise with €100. Then assuming I don't have a euro balance with the issuer, they'll deduct from my £ balance according to their own pricing policy. (Revolut convert at the interbank rate, unless it's a weekend or you've exceeded the monthly limit; Transferwise charge something like 0.35% above the interbank rate, so not dissimilar from the Mastercard rate.)

[I'm ignoring the fees that Mastercard earn from merchants regardless of currency, as these don't directly impact you.]

d123

londoninvestor wrote: »

The key thing is that Mastercard doesn't just publish the rate as a matter of information (like Bloomberg, Reuters et al do) - Mastercard is doing the FX conversion.

Other than on their website, you mean

https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/consumers/get-support/convert-currency.html

Quick click shows their current rate as 1 EUR = 0.8945 GBP

londoninvestor

d123 wrote: »

Other than on their website, you mean

https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/consumers/get-support/convert-currency.html

Quick click shows their current rate as 1 EUR = 0.8945 GBP

Yes indeed - hence "doesn't just publish it"

d123

londoninvestor wrote: »

Yes indeed - hence "doesn't just publish it"

You can also see them here if you don’t want to click the dropdown menus on the Mastercard site..


https://ferates.com/valyuta/visa_mastercard/mastercard/gbp/2019-06-22

londoninvestor

d123 wrote: »

You can also see them here if you don’t want to click the dropdown menus on the Mastercard site..


https://ferates.com/valyuta/visa_mastercard/mastercard/gbp/2019-06-22

Aha, cool, that's neat. Particularly the two columns for the conversion rates in different directions, so that it makes the spread evident.

glider3560

Just noticed that Starling will be charging 0.4% on transfers from GBP to EUR accounts (and vice versa) from 1st September 2019.

Sneakily added to https://www.starlingbank.com/current-account/euro-bank-account/ under the heading "Seamless".