Bank West $0 Foreign Currency 'Fee'

[FrankC]

I have the Zero Platinum, and I have always assumed that it is fee free for overseas spent

On 7Apr2015, I spent NZD36.90
On the statement, it shows it as AUD37.12

I'm now wondering if this is the norm?

Cheers

 

[coles525]

Banks exchange rate I would expect (never the true online rate!)

 

[Mattg]

Pretty much all banks make a margin on the "official" exchange rate. The rate they use is always in their favour.

The Bankwest card you have however is one of few cards that doesn't charge a fee/commission on top of that.

 

[coles525]

Anything is better than other fees and charges!

 

[Danger]

Interesting. I thought the Bankwest card offered pretty much market rates, just like the 28 Degrees card. If it doesn't, I'm dumping it immediately.

 

[nonpop]

Interesting. I thought the Bankwest card offered pretty much market rates, just like the 28 Degrees card. If it doesn't, I'm dumping it immediately.

Unless something has changed 28 deg & B/W will produce the same results as both are mastercard and it is mastercard that does the conversion and hands the amount to the CC issuer / what appears on your statement. Mastercard will be making a slight clip on the forex rate but better than anything in the open market available against small transactions. We also need to keep in mind the FX rate used is when the transaction settles vs when it takes place, so there may be a discrepancy in that dept as well.

I appreciate some overseas merchants will attempt to bill you in AUD vs the local currency ... is where the rate becomes less favorable to the consumer.

 

[FrankC]

To be clear, the statement shows NZD36.90 in the description & AUD37.12 in the amount column

So I believe the conversion is done by Bank West/ Mastercard, not some dynamic merchant currency exchange

Disappointing really

 

[Danger]

Unless something has changed 28 deg & B/W will produce the same results as both are mastercard and it is mastercard that does the conversion and hands the amount to the CC issuer / what appears on your statement. Mastercard will be making a slight clip on the forex rate but better than anything in the open market available against small transactions. We also need to keep in mind the FX rate used is when the transaction settles vs when it takes place, so there may be a discrepancy in that dept as well.

I appreciate some overseas merchants will attempt to bill you in AUD vs the local currency ... is where the rate becomes less favorable to the consumer.

So to be clear, in terms of the exchange rate, there's no difference in using this card over the 28 Degrees card?

 

[Cynicor]

Guess we need a few more data points. Citi plus (debit account, not a CC) and 28 degrees definitely offer the XE rate, or close enough to it. (I.e published MC/Visa rate for the day).

Did the dollar dive between now and whenever the transaction was put through. Maybe check out XEs cc charge calculator for a few dates.

 

[knasty]

Guess we need a few more data points. Citi plus (debit account, not a CC) and 28 degrees definitely offer the XE rate, or close enough to it. (I.e published MC/Visa rate for the day).

Did the dollar dive between now and whenever the transaction was put through. Maybe check out XEs cc charge calculator for a few dates.

Check the thread on Citi Plus Fx rate inconsistency. I had a 3% difference between the quoted visa rate and what it posted for Nzd. After an hour citi could only confirm they did not add anything but couldn't explain the massive difference between the visa quoted rate and posted rate.

 

[vitagen]

Did u click AUD payment instead of.paying in NZD

 

[knasty]

This was at an atm. Posted in Nzd, no dcc, no foreign bank fee, just terrible Fx rate compared with visa's posted rate. The supervisor admitted there was a problem, but didn't know what it was or how to fix it. If it happens to me again I'll pursue it again. We should all be vigilant.

 

[Cynicor]

This was at an atm. Posted in Nzd, no dcc, no foreign bank fee, just terrible Fx rate compared with visa's posted rate. The supervisor admitted there was a problem, but didn't know what it was or how to fix it. If it happens to me again I'll pursue it again. We should all be vigilant.

I know the citi card works 100% of the time for me, and posted in that thread. I also mentioned DCC exists at ATMs, which you appear not to have seen.

Edit- Just looked at my last 4 transactions at ATMs in Turkey (Istanbul), France (Parisx2) and Czech Republic (Prague). All come out within under 1% of the XE rate.

 

[Ghostdunks]

I actually had a few purchases showing in my statement on the same date for the same card, just in USD, rather than NZD. They resulted in foreign exchange charges of about 0.87%(as calculated by xe credit card charge calculator) for about half the charges showing on that day. A sample was USD$112.46, which resulted in AUD$148.38. While not particularly great, vits a lot better than my other credit card which has transactions showing up on the same date(Citibank Signature Visa), which had a surcharge % of about 4.5%, but I expected that as that particular card issuer is supposed to charge 3.3% on top of the VISA exchange rate.

As another data point, I also had another purchase on Bankwest Platinum showing on my statement on 2nd April for $USD206.29, which resulted in AUD$271.86, which is -0.322% If there's significant currency movement, then I would expect to see swings both ways, positive and negative for the consumers, so maybe OP had some bad luck on that day.

There are other variables in play as well here which I don't think any of us really know the intricacies of. I have about 12 transactions in USD which all show up on my statement as 7th April. The breakdown of the surcharge(on top of the xe rate) for them is:
6 purchases made on 31/03 - 0.87%
1 purchase made on 31/03 - 0.85%
1 purchase made on 02/04 - 0.87%
3 purchases made on 03/04 - 0.82%
1 purchase made on 04/04 - 0.82%

So the differences between the surcharges which show up on the same day on the statement could be due to rounding differences, or other factors eg. time of day the transactions were actually settled, etc..

For the 3 weeks I was away in the US and used the Bankwest Platinum card, I did a quick analysis of all my transactions on that card and the surcharge(over XE) worked out to be between -0.5% to just under 1%, but it never went over 1%.
I also had some transactions on the Citibank Signature Visa card, and surcharge worked out to between 3% to 5%.

 

[Cynicor]

...
For the 3 weeks I was away in the US and used the Bankwest Platinum card, I did a quick analysis of all my transactions on that card and the surcharge(over XE) worked out to be between -0.5% to just under 1%, but it never went over 1%.
I also had some transactions on the Citibank Signature Visa card, and surcharge worked out to between 3% to 5%.

Citi Signature is expensive, but at 4 ppd it can be worth it.

 

[get me outta here]

I am new the the BW card, what has been the experience with ATM withdrawal 'costs'?

 

[knasty]

I know the citi card works 100% of the time for me, and posted in that thread. I also mentioned DCC exists at ATMs, which you appear not to have seen.

Edit- Just looked at my last 4 transactions at ATMs in Turkey (Istanbul), France (Parisx2) and Czech Republic (Prague). All come out within under 1% of the XE rate.

With dcc the transaction posts in Aud. You can see it in the transaction description. I am talking Fx posting only ie. no dcc as confirmed by Citi, no foreign bank fee indicated in the withdrawal amount . I've had citi work fine in Europe in the past just as you have but there are a number of us who have had similar experiences with Citi in certain circumstances and now possibly bankwest.

 

[Ghostdunks]

Citi Signature is expensive, but at 4 ppd it can be worth it.

Yup, thats why I was using it on this trip, just checking out relative value and trying to add to my store of FF points Also wanted to compare with Bankwest Platinum

 

[Cynicor]

With dcc the transaction posts in Aud. You can see it in the transaction description. I am talking Fx posting only ie. no dcc as confirmed by Citi, no foreign bank fee indicated in the withdrawal amount . I've had citi work fine in Europe in the past just as you have but there are a number of us who have had similar experiences with Citi in certain circumstances and now possibly bankwest.

Interesting then, if it was definitely posted in (NZD was it?). I assume significant movements in the NZD/USD or AUD/USD in +/- 2 days from your transaction would be the only other plausible cause. These might only show up in intraday trading charts rather than the closing numbers.

 

[b_adger]

Interesting then, if it was definitely posted in (NZD was it?). I assume significant movements in the NZD/USD or AUD/USD in +/- 2 days from your transaction would be the only other plausible cause. These might only show up in intraday trading charts rather than the closing numbers.

I had a similar problem with my BW platinum. After calling them and discussing it for some time, it turned out that the date they used for the conversion (at the MC posted rate) was several days after the actual transaction had taken place and had appeared in internet banking. I was just unlucky that the rate had changed a bit in those several days.