Starling Bank Europe Transactions?

Dotty12

Never paid on card in a foreign country before and I anticipate language barriers so if contactless is not an option I see potential problems. I may not know what currency I'm paying before its too late

Surely the staff member dictates this I can't imagine there being an option for me on the chip&pin machine

Wellard_Mann

Dotty12 wrote: »

Never paid on card in a foreign country before and I anticipate language barriers so if contactless is not an option I see potential problems. I may not know what currency I'm paying before its too late

Surely the staff member dictates this I can't imagine there being an option for me on the chip&pin machine

I've always found that the option is there, though in my experience the wording can be ambiguous. It is worth checking before you input your PIN. On one occasion, the server in a restaurant had set the machine to sterling before handing it to me -necessitating my resetting it to Euros. DCC is a pain.

gt94sss2

Worth noting that Starling are also in the process of rolling out Euro accounts: https://www.starlingbank.com/current-account/euro-bank-account/

londoninvestor

btw Mastercard's DCC guidelines do rule out various dodgy practices, and you ought to be able to make a claim if you are subjected to DCC without your consent:
https://www.mastercard.com/elearning/dcc/docs/DCC%20Guide%2020.02.17%20EN.pdf

Mastercard wrote:

It is imperative that Dynamic Currency Conversion should be a transparent process – one that ensures that, at all times, the Cardholder is fully aware of: the fact that they have a choice of currency; what the transaction amount is in both currencies; and what the exchange rate is. Only in this way can we avoid the sort of confusion or dissatisfaction that will lead to a Cardholder complaint.

There's a danger of course though that it becomes a "your word against theirs" scenario.

Terry_Towelling

Dotty12 wrote: »

What about transactions? Say I'm in a Spanish supermarket and my items come to 20 Euros and I pay via my Starling card, would I get a similar choice of an 'exchange rate' or to pay in GBP? Or would I just get charged whatever 20 Euros is in GBP on the day of transaction according to the mastercard rate?

You won't get offered an exchange rate, per se. You will get offered an amount in local currency or in Sterling if you take DCC. Obviously, go for local currency.

It's been a while since I was able to go abroad but I was never offered DCC (anywhere, ever. Perhaps that shows how long it's been!). Anyhow, unless the cashier in a supermarket has any reason to believe you aren't a local, why would they even think of offering DCC? Obviously a restaurant is different because they will have heard you speak and be thinking, 'Typical Brit, can't even be bothered to learn the basics of the language'.:)

I could understand it if the POS equipment were able to detect the nationality of the card, it might interrupt the transaction process and prompt the cashier to offer a change of currency but I don't really think that will happen.

Certainly in a supermarket you will see the values being scanned in the local currency and you will know the total in the local currency (from the till display). If the card machine shows anything different, you will know something has happened.

At the end of the day, I don't think that there is an international conspiracy to inflict DCC on all English-speaking customers.

londoninvestor

Terry_Towelling wrote: »

You won't get offered an exchange rate, per se

According to the Mastercard guidelines, the exchange rate has to be shown to you. Machines do seem to do this (assuming someone doesn't make the selection for you before you've seen the machine!)

Terry_Towelling wrote: »

I could understand it if the POS equipment were able to detect the nationality of the card, it might interrupt the transaction process and prompt the cashier to offer a change of currency but I don't really think that will happen.

That's just what does happen - see this thread (from post #10 onwards):
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5960656/starling-euro-fee-free-current-account

Terry_Towelling wrote: »

At the end of the day, I don't think that there is an international conspiracy to inflict DCC on all English-speaking customers.

Conspiracy is probably too strong for it, but merchants get a commission from DCC, so it's natural that they act according to their incentives.

Terry_Towelling

londoninvestor wrote: »

According to the Mastercard guidelines, the exchange rate has to be shown to you. Machines do seem to do this (assuming someone doesn't make the selection for you before you've seen the machine!)

That's just what does happen - see this thread (from post #10 onwards):
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5960656/starling-euro-fee-free-current-account

Conspiracy is probably too strong for it, but merchants get a commission from DCC, so it's natural that they act according to their incentives.

Thanks for the clarity. I said it was a long time since I was able to travel abroad:)

glider3560

Heng_Leng wrote: »

I recommend using contactless - where available - as it bypasses DCC without any conversation with retail staff.

Not always. Spanish supermarket Mercadona is an example of where DCC will be offered with contactless. It happens on the customer facing machine after touching the card. Red button = charge in EUR, green button = accept conversion. Appears in English.

londoninvestor

Not relevant to Starling, but on the broad theme of DCC - Mastercard are no longer allowing it for prepaid multicurrency cards:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2019/04/got-a-prepaid-mastercard--you-won-t-be-offered-rip-off-currency-/

Not sure if this applies to Transferwise - while their card is functionally similar, they tend not to market it as a prepaid card. I'll ask them (unless anyone knows already?)

londoninvestor

Transferwise told me:

Transferwise wrote:

I just wanted to follow up and let you know our team just recently discussed this change with MasterCard, and it is only applied to pre-paid cards at this time.

Hopefully in the future MC will expand this decision to include all cards, or at least to make it an optional feature for non-prepaid cards, as we are also very interested in eliminating these types of transactions altogether.